The Marauders Book 1
by Noelle3
Summary: What would have happened if there was another marauder? A girl marauder? This is a nice fic that covers that posibility.
1. A New Marauder

Marauders Part 1: The Beginning  
  
A/N: Hello! This is my new story! Sorry I haven't written for awhile, I had exams. ( But those are over now!!!  
  
__________________________________________  
  
  
  
'No.'  
  
  
  
'Why?!' pleaded Adara Mellyndar with a wide-eyed look of anticipation.  
  
'Because I said so. It's way, way, way too dangerous.' replied Remus Lupin annoyedly, picking up his textbook and turning away.  
  
'I can help! I'm good at this sort of thing!'  
  
'You'd get us all caught. How'd you find out, anyway?'  
  
'I eavesdropped.' she replied with a grin, following him out the library door.  
  
'Is nothing sacred, Adara?' he said, holding the door open politely.  
  
'Apparently not. Thanks for the chivalry, Remus.' she replied, hefting her bag over her shoulder. 'I've got to go-think about it, will you please? You could use my help, you know it.'  
  
'You're twelve years old- do you have to use words like 'chivalry?' And besides, you're probably wrong.'  
  
'I am not wrong. I wouldn't mess it up, you'll see. And just because I'm precocious--'  
  
He sighed exasperatedly. 'Uh, why don't you talk to Sirius?'  
  
'Because he can't stand the sight of me, you know that.' she said matter-of- factly, turning left down the corridor.  
  
'You're exaggerating again.' he informed her.  
  
'Oh, I am not.'  
  
'Yeah, y'are.'  
  
'No, I'm not. I really have to go now-- PLEASE think about it. You can always use an extra person. And besides, if I'm in on it, I'll be a lot less likely to let it slip.' she told him  
  
with a delighted smile, a light dancing in her pupils that he knew meant business.  
  
'You wouldn't.'  
  
'Sure I wouldn't' she replied, crossing her fingers in front of his face. 'Surrrre I wouldn't.'  
  
'Honestly. It is no wonder whatsoever that you're a Slytherin.'  
  
'Thank you.'  
  
'Not a compliment.' he said, brushing his hair out of his eyes.  
  
'So you're saying you'll talk to them?'  
  
'I'll make you a deal. You think up a plan to get us the book, and you're in on it. Deal?' he said, knowing he was fighting a losing battle.  
  
'Deal.' she said with a huge grin. 'Oh, man, this is so great--'  
  
'Shhhhh!' he said, shaking his hand and raising a finger to his lips. 'You tell anybody, and the whole thing is blown.'  
  
'Me be careful? I found out about this whole thing by listening to you four. Perhaps you might want to discuss such important matters in less public places?'  
  
He blushed. 'Right.'  
  
'Right. See you later.'  
  
'Yeah.'  
  
They headed down separate corridors.  
  
The Following Saturday:  
  
'I have a plan!' announced Adara triumphantly, bursting into the library wearing a grin.  
  
'Oh, no.' groaned Sirius Black. 'I knew it.'  
  
'No, really. A good plan. It'll work'  
  
'Hear her out, Sirius,' suggested James Potter. 'Or else, how are we ever going to pull this off? You haven't exactly been Mister-Idea-Man lately.'  
  
'But if she has a plan, it means we have to let her--' Sirius began complaining.  
  
''Scuse me!' interrupted Adara flippantly. 'I'm right here, and if you don't want to hear my brilliant plan, you can just figure out how to get the book without getting caught yourselves.'  
  
'No, no, we'll hear it!' Remus spoke up tiredly.  
  
'Thank you.' She plopped into an armchair next to the four. 'All right. I assume you were going to use James' cloak to--'  
  
'How did you know about James' cloak?!' the four of them exclaimed simultaneously.  
  
'You boys have really got to learn to be a little more discreet.' she replied calmly, pulling a piece of parchment out of her robes. 'Here's the name of the book we need, and exactly how to get to it.'  
  
James took the roll from her and read aloud. 'Animagi Transformations: Do's, Don'ts, and Consequences.' He passed it to Remus, who read silently.  
  
'Now. To get to the book;' she started, shifting her eyes around for eavesdroppers, 'you have to go through a bookshelf to the Extra Restricted section. And unfortunately, it can only be done during the day.'  
  
'Oh, no.' said Sirius depressedly. 'There's no way that'll happen. The library's always packed during the day-James'll never get through a bookshelf without anyone seeing, even if he is invisible. Scratch that plan.'  
  
'I don't think so.' said Adara with maddening calm.  
  
'Well then, what's the rest?' Sirius demanded.  
  
'What else?' she replied. 'Your speciality. Create a diversion.'  
  
'To distract them from a book shelf swinging open?'  
  
'It's only part of a bookshelf. Here's what we're going to do.' she said, pulling the parchment away from James, who was studying the secret to opening the passage.  
  
'How'd you get this stuff, anyway?' he said as she took it out of his hands.  
  
'I have my ways. As I was saying, the five of us walking to the library very innocently next weekend, only James is invisible.'  
  
'Got it.'  
  
'Now, when we get here, Peter stands outside the door. If anyone starts to suspect anything, create a commotion. Pretend your wand backfired. Know how to do that?'  
  
'I guess.' Pettigrew said nervously, biting his nails.  
  
'Now, Sirius and I are going to sit right over there,' she pointed to a central table, 'and start having a fight. One of those nice, loud, choice- expletive ones that everyone is so fond of.' she continued, pulling up her knees to sit cross-legged.  
  
'That oughta hold their attention' agreed Sirius, apparently warming to Adara already. 'What else?'  
  
'Well, Remus here is going to ask Madam Pince a whole lot of complicated questions,' she explained, turning to Lupin. 'Okay?'  
  
'Yeah.' he said eagerly. 'This is actually sounding as if it might work.'  
  
'I know.' she said with a grin. 'As all that is going on, James is going to slip into the restricted section, open the shelf, grab the book, and leave the library, upon which Sirius and I will reach a truce and everything will suddenly become clear to Remus. And a little while later, we'll leave,  
  
attempting to look innocent, and skedaddle down to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, where James'll be with the book.'  
  
'GREAT!' exclaimed Remus, attracting weird stares from some of the other students across the library. 'That should work like a charm.'  
  
'Should.' she emphasised. 'Now, are you going to let me in? You promised!'  
  
'Well...' They all hesitated. 'Dunno... she's a girl... and a Slytherin...'  
  
'And comes up with brilliant plans and is at least as conniving as you four...' she drawled in response, leaning on her hand.  
  
'Give us a second.' James said, holding up a hand. 'Privacy, please?'  
  
'Sure.' she said easily, although she was obviously very worried. 'Hurry, please.' She stood carefully and walked to the other side of the library, as they huddled and discussed in hushed tones.  
  
'I don't know.' Sirius said worriedly. ' I really don't know.'  
  
Remus shrugged. 'I'd say she's more then proved herself, if you ask me.'  
  
'Yes.' James agreed. 'And she really wants this. She's not really that bad, especially for a Slytherin.'  
  
'But that's just it!' argued Peter. 'She's a Slytherin! A stinking Slytherin!'  
  
Sirius punched him.  
  
'What if she heard you, dimwit?' hissed Lupin. 'She's already taken the first step to make you three Animagi and you insult her? Swift.'  
  
'I just don't think we can trust her.' he said meekly, rubbing his arm.  
  
'Well then, it's three against one, isn't it.' said Sirius, studying the parchment containing Adara's plan. 'She could be useful.'  
  
James looked to the other side of the large room. 'She's definitely not the typical Slytherin.'  
  
'So it's agreed then?' asked Remus.  
  
Sirius and James nodded, followed hesitantly by Peter.  
  
'ADARA!' hollered Remus, earning him a glare from the librarian. 'C'mere.' he added in a quieter tone.  
  
She hurried over. 'Verdict?'  
  
'Welllll...' Sirius said, teasing her.  
  
Adara pulled her wand out of her belt. 'Mmmm-hmmm?' she asked innocently, tapping it in one hand.  
  
'You're in.' said James finally. 'Just--just don't tell anyone.'  
  
'Of course I won't!' she squealed, losing her cool. 'Yay! This is really corking!'  
  
Sirius, Remus and James put their hands out, and she put hers on top of theirs. 'Look at us.' she said elatedly. 'A bunch of mischief-making marauders.'  
  
'Hey.' said Sirius. 'I like that. The Marauders.'  
  
James grinned. 'I told you she'd fit right in.'  
  
Afterword: This was merely the beginning. The way I have this plot planned out, you might want antiseasick pills to get you around the twists and plot holes. It's really quite long and er.. some parts quite dark, particularly the later years. Now I'm usually not desperate for reviews, but I  
  
REALLY want them for this! Please! Feedback is good! Any feedback! Especially good feedback! Tell me how you like Adara! Tell me if you'll read the rest of this! I'm ill!  
  
Reviews are really good medicine! -Noelle 


	2. Sweet Success

A/N: Cookies to everybody if anybody can tell me where I got the name Adara! -Noelle  
  
The Marauders Part 2: Sweet Success  
  
'All right.' Sirius whispered to James, who was walking alongside him, although nobody could tell. 'This had better work, or we are going to be in a LOT of trouble.'  
  
'It'll work.' said Adara confidently. 'What's the problem? Don't trust me?'  
  
'I trust you!' he said hurriedly. 'I just... I'm just nervous, is all.'  
  
'O.K.' Remus spoke up. 'Everyone do exactly what you're supposed to do.'  
  
'Don't forget to give us the signal so we know you've got it, James.' Adara whispered to her left.  
  
'Right.' he whispered back, giving her an invisible thumbs-up.  
  
'Go!' she hissed as four of them entered the library. Peter hung back outside the door, should any of them need a diversion.  
  
Sirius and Adara headed right over to the central table and sat down, waited for Remus to begin distracting Madam Frick, and then started a very loud fight, accompanied by poking.  
  
'It's all your fault, Black!'  
  
'MY fault? Who lost the parchment?'  
  
'Who forgot to remind me not to?'  
  
'That made even less sense then usual!'  
  
'I can't flunk Transfiguration!'  
  
'ME NEITHER!'  
  
The other students in the library immediately turned their attention to, and subsequently became engrossed in, the unfolding soap opera at the center table.  
  
'Hey! That hurt!'  
  
'Well, you spilled your ink in my lap. You deserved it.'  
  
'That was an accident!'  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
Meanwhile, Remus was standing in front of the librarian's desk. 'Er...Madam?' he asked timidly.  
  
'Yes?' she asked irritably.  
  
'I was...I was wondering if you could show me where I could find the recipe for Confusing Concoctions in this book?' he said, hefting a gigantic, dusty Potions text up in front of him with a loud thump.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
Peter stationed himself outside the library door and tried to look nonchalant. It didn't matter what those other three fools said; he, Peter Pettigrew, was at least smart enough to know not to trust that girl, that conniving little Slytherin. They'd regret it, the three of them. He knew they would. They acted so big, so brave, so... superior. And she was just the same, now that they'd let her join. And everyone looked down on Peter, little, weak, pathetic Pettigrew... well, he'd show them. He was the only one with any sense.  
  
Oh well - if he didn't play along, her plan wouldn't work. That would show them. Peter yawned boredly and leaned against the wall.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
James was slipping silently toward the restricted section, chucking to himself while listening to Sirius and Adara's argument. They're pretty fair actors, he mused to himself, pulling a piece of parchment out of his pocket.  
  
'SHUT UP!'  
  
'NO! Nya nya nya nya nya!'  
  
'I'm going to put a Chicken-Pox Charm on you!'  
  
'You wouldn't dare, you little troll!'  
  
James glanced down at the instructions for opening the bookshelf written in Adara's green spirals, even though he knew them by heart. Finally, he arrived at the specific bookshelf under a large, gilt-framed portrait of Nicolas Flamel and knelt down in front of it. 'Let's see.' he muttered to himself. 'Looking for Magic through the Ages...' He spotted the large, dusty, boring-looking volume almost at once and tapped it with his wand. 'Dissendium!' he hissed, and suddenly a portion of the bookshelf ground back behind the one next to it, revealing a long, narrow passage.  
  
James squeezed his skinny frame through the opening and crawled on his stomach through the stone tunnel, compressing his shoulders so he didn't get wedged, until he finally emerged into a room so small that he couldn't stand up all the way. A single wall sconce cast greenish shadows onto the small bookshelf along one wall, which he hurried over to.  
  
Right away, he found the golden-embossed spellbook about Animagi, pulled it out, wiped the cobwebs away with one long sleeve, and stowed it inside his robes.  
  
Well, that was easy, he thought, preparing to squeeze back into the passage.  
  
Which he found closed.  
  
Uh-oh.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
Adara stopped arguing with Sirius for a moment and looked at her watch. 'Shouldn't he be back by now?' she mouthed at him.  
  
Sirius frowned. 'Yeah,' he whispered back.  
  
Adara raised her voice again. 'You couldn't charm me with an amateur wand, Squib!'  
  
'Want to see me try??!'  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
Remus was running out of stupid questions and fast getting  
  
into deep water.  
  
'Uh...um...' he managed, faking a coughing fit.  
  
'Do you need to go to the nurse, Mr. Lupin?' asked Madam Frick boredly, raising her eyes from her book and pushing her glasses up her nose.  
  
'Er...no, no; I'm fine.' he said swiftly, his gaze darting wildly over to Adara and Sirius. 'What...uh, where's the books about,' Think, Remus, think! 'Magical Creatures!' That's it. Good save, old boy!  
  
'Mr. Lupin.' said the librarian severely, 'Have you been in this school for two years or two days? You know very well where the Care of Magical Creatures texts are. Are you trying to...  
  
hide something from me?' she asked, her eyes narrowing as she tried to peer around him.  
  
He took a sharp step sideways to block her gaze. 'No, Madam, nothing.' Peter, what the hell are you waiting for? Now's a good time for a diversion! RIGHT NOW!  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
James was trying hard not to panic, but he was fast getting claustrophobic in the tiny, dark, stonewalled room. Adara hadn't said anything about the passage closing... or had she? He racked his brains, clutching the thick text to his chest, and thought back to their conversations the previous week. He was just wondering whether this should be the moment he should choose to go insane when something came back to him:  
  
'So what happens when he gets in there?'  
  
'Well...are you listening, James?'  
  
'Mm-hmm.'  
  
'Well, it's the same charm used on Platform 93/4...'  
  
There we go. James thought harder.  
  
'Looks like it's there, but it's not...'  
  
Aha! he thought to himself. Jackpot. He laid down on his stomach and crawled toward the place where the passage opening had been a few minutes ago, closed his eyes, clutched the book, and went toward what looked like solid wall.  
  
When he opened his large blue eyes a few seconds later and wiped the dust off his glasses, he was in the passage again, and he could hear Adara and Sirius still arguing somewhere distantly down the tunnel. His worries dispersed, and he began inching faster toward the main library.  
  
Suddenly, there was a squeaking noise, followed by little scuffling sounds. James jerked his head toward the noises, but the passage was so narrow that he couldn't see back down it past his shoulders, and he began going faster still.  
  
All in an instant and with a flash of light, tiny creatures began rushing down the tunnel at him, and he threw up his arms to cover his face. He felt tiny sharp nails scratching his wrists through his robes, and knew exactly what the beings were. He'd just read about them in Defense Against the Dark Arts the other day.  
  
'Damn!' he muttered out loud. 'Red Caps!' Instinctively, his hands went down his robes for his wand, but the tunnel was so narrow he couldn't get to it. Jerking his head up in surprise, he  
  
managed to bang it severely on the passage roof, and saw stars.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
'I am really getting worried now.' Adara said to Sirius in an undertone. 'Do you think he's all right?'  
  
'OF COURSE!' Sirius yelled, still trying to keep the students' attention should James suddenly come bursting out of a wall or something.  
  
Adara glanced toward Remus, who was looking decidedly uncomfortable. 'Where's Peter? He was supposed to explode something if anything went wrong!'  
  
'I know,' Sirius replied, lowering his voice for a minute. 'You think one of us should go out there?'  
  
'You go.' said Adara decisively. 'I'll uh- follow James, I guess.'  
  
Sirius gathered his books, stood, and strode toward the door with the look of one turning his back on an enemy. Adara briefly admired his acting ability, but as soon as the library door closed behind him, there was a deafening explosion, which shook the room and sent a horde of excited students along with the librarian rushing out of the library in a stampede.  
  
'Thanks, Sirius.' Adara muttered inaudibly, abandoning her books and rushing into the restricted section. Quicker then  
  
ightning, she had the passage open and was halfway inside it, yelling 'JAMES! Are you all right?! Where are you?'  
  
'I'm fine!' his voice echoed from some distance down the wisting narrow tunnel. 'Don't...don't come down here... Red Caps...'  
  
'WHAT?!' she yelled. 'RED CAPS?'  
  
'Yeah!' he shouted back. 'I've almost got them off- Go back! I'll be out in a minute-'  
  
'HURRY!' she shouted.  
  
'Wait there!' he yelled back, his voice sounding closer.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
'What do you think you are doing, Mr. Black?' asked the librarian furiously, as Remus slipped silently away and Peter cowered behind a group of Ravenclaw fifth-formers, trying not to look at Sirius. People would expect a wand backfiring from Peter Pettigrew, but never from Sirius Black, and he wasn't going to be happy.  
  
'My...wand..' Sirius started meekly, then began to get into it. 'My wand backfired, Madam. I'm sorry, I'll clean up the mess.' he finished confidently, shoving his hands in his pockets.  
  
'Yes, you certainly will!' Madam Frick said sternly, to the amusement of the audience of students surrounding the mess. 'And then I think you shall have a detention or two!'  
  
Sirius groaned.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
'Hurry, James, will you please?' Adara hissed down the tunnel.  
  
James was making his way down the passage as fast as he possibly could without getting stuck, but the darkness made it impossible for him to see where he was going. Since he was  
  
still wearing the Invisibility Cloak, he crashed squarely into Adara.  
  
'Sorry.' he muttered, pulling it off his head.  
  
'Yeah.' she said. 'We have to go - now!'  
  
The two of them backed quickly out of the passage and James threw the cloak over their shoulders and whispered, 'Go. Now. Hurry!'  
  
It was rather hard to run in a way so the cloak didn't fall off the two of them, but they managed all right after the first few steps, and soon they were out of the Restricted Section and had slipped out of the library.  
  
James tapped out their signal with his wand on the doorframe and Sirius's eyes flickered over to where the sound was coming from, as James and Adara slipped toward Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and James shoved the supple cloak down his robes.  
  
'Yes, Madam.' Sirius said politely, desperate to get away.  
  
'All right, then.' she said in a cold voice, spun and walked away. The crowd of students began to disperse.  
  
Sirius stomped disgruntledly down to the dungeons and threw open the door to the girls' toilet. 'Honestly, that old dragon-' He stopped abruptly when he saw James, Remus and Adara collectively holding a giant gilded textbook and wearing smiles from ear to ear.  
  
'YES!' he whooped.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
A/N: Yawn. Well, that was nice. Reviews are GREATLY  
  
appreciated-leave them here or talk to me at a_noelle_m@hotmail.com  
  
These get better as the gang gets older. I have this thing about writing kids - I don't like doing it! So naturally, the later years are better. Please, PLEASE leave me reviews. Must I beg? 


	3. Muffins and Moods

A/N: Third part in the story of the lady Marauder. Major fluff. Marauders with mood swings! That is, not really a part important to the plot. *GASP* Yes, it has a plot! It's just not apparent yet. Well, there is a bit of one of the subplots revealed-- or maybe two of the subplots. I've lost  
  
count. Bwa ha ha ha ha! -Noelle  
  
"Lives of great men all remind us  
  
we can make our lives sublime,  
  
and, departing, leave behind us  
  
footprints on the sand of time."  
  
~Longfellow  
  
***  
  
The Marauders Part 3: Muffins and Mood Swings  
  
"Right, then.' said James, sparking his wand and lighting a candle. "What's it say?"  
  
"This is the most difficult spell I've ever seen." said Adara, running her finger down the wrinkled page. "Look! Look at this! This could take us years!"  
  
"You're such an optimist." remarked Sirius dryly. "Let me see that, will you?" He seized the huge book and pulled it into his lap. It was a bit before midnight on the day they"d managed to pilfer the Animagi text, and the five of them were seated in a circle on the floor in Moaning Myrtle"s  
  
bathroom. A long, tapered candle dripped wax into a dish in the middle of the group.  
  
"It's really dark in here." Adara said, prodding Remus, who was slowly proceeding to nod off next to her. "I don't care where, but we are definitely going to have to find somewhere better to meet then an abandoned bathroom."  
  
"I agree." said James, yawning widely. "This is simply not appropriate." He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, and Adara bonked him with a rolled-up parchment. Peter was snoring quietly against the opposite wall. She'd long ago given up trying to keep him awake.  
  
Sirius continued studying the gargantuan book. "This really might take us years. It's a potion and a spell, too." He pushed the book over to James and they leaned over it together. "Where are we gonna find all this stuff?"  
  
"Uh-oh." said Adara suddenly, reading over their shoulders.  
  
"What?" Remus asked, snapping his head up.  
  
"Look here." she said, pointing to a passage further down. "It says you don't pick what animal you become. You take the potion and do the spell and it decides for you-- what creature you're most like."  
  
"So?" asked Sirius absently, scratching his ear and turning the page.  
  
"Well... what if one of us turns into an earthworm or a-- a leech or something?"  
  
James laughed suddenly and cracked, "I can see it now. Sirius Black the goldfish."  
  
"Really, I mean it. This could be harder then I originally expected." Adara said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Or what if something goes wrong and one of us gets stuck as an animal? Or gets turned into half an animal or something like that?" She was looking increasingly nervous.  
  
"Relax, Adara." said Sirius confidently. "Who are the cleverest in our year?"  
  
"Us?"guessed Remus, while Adara bit her fingernails down to the cuticle.  
  
"Correct." affirmed Sirius, reclaiming the book from Remus. "I'm sure we'll get it right eventually."  
  
"But-" started Adara.  
  
"But me no buts!" he cried, clapping his hand over her mouth.  
  
"Mwumph mmm mmph mmm mph!" she replied indigently.  
  
Sirius removed his hand. "What was that? Didn't quite catch it."  
  
I said, "Since when are you my mother?" she told him, wiping her mouth with the back of her palm. "And I meant it." Sirius and Adara had been picking fights with each other since they'd met on the train two and a half years ago. James couldn't put his finger on it, but something about the  
  
two of them made them argue about everything down to the most minute detail. Worse, they were doing it even more now that they were spending so much time together.  
  
"Uh, listen, guys." Remus said suddenly, simultaneously managing to wake up James and Peter and distract Adara and Sirius from the brewing fight, "I gotta thank you for doing this. Nobody-and I mean nobody- could ever do anything so wonderful." His voice cracked violently, and  
  
he drew his knees up to his head and buried his face in them. His speech became muffled. "You're all great."  
  
There was silence for a moment until the four around him began exclaiming random blurbs of affection out loud.  
  
"I'd do anything for you, Remus!" declared Adara, and tears started clinging to the thick black lashes framing her unusually dark blue-violet eyes.  
  
"Of course, we all would, we're your friends!" James told him, clapping him on the back.  
  
"Yeah, Lupin old boy, you're stuck with us! For life!" Sirius added, sounding a bit choked up himself.  
  
"You can count on us, Remus!" agreed Peter. "Forever and a day!"  
  
The scene was depressing and happy at the same time. The five Marauders sat sniffling around a candle that was slowly going out, the last drops of wax running into the dish. Adara was holding Remus as he sobbed onto her shoulder, her face wet with tears that were dripping onto  
  
her robes and leaving damp polka dots. James and Sirius were making valiant attempts not to cry, but were sadly unsuccessful. Sirius was pretending to be acutely interested in tying his shoelace, and James had his face turned away from the candle and was blowing his nose into a handkerchief. Peter was weeping into the sleeve of his robes. It was not a terribly uplifting sight.  
  
Unexpectedly, the candle fizzled and went out, simultaneously plunging the bathroom into darkness and fixing the wagons of the over-emotional students crowding around it. They all became silent for about ten seconds and then burst out into near-hysterical laughter.  
  
"I can't believe it!" declared Sirius through his chuckles. "All it takes us is one day with a girl and we become snivelling idiots?"  
  
"Hey!" giggled Adara. "There's nothing wrong with being a snivelling idiot! I bet the snivelling idiots of the world are offended!"  
  
"Adara, that made absolutely no sense!" howled James, losing it completely and bursting out in guffaws.  
  
"No, no, it made plenty of sense," cried Remus. "Snivelling idiots have feelings too!" With this proclamation, he proceeded to crack up.  
  
Peter tried to say something, discovered he was laughing too hard, and that only made him laugh harder. Adara was crying again, from giggling uncontrollably, and James wordlessly handed her another handkerchief. She blew her nose with a sound like a foghorn in the dark and everyone  
  
burst out into a fresh spurt of chuckling, which she sounded only mildly offended at. "Hey! Okay, calm down! You're all going to make yourselves sick!" she ordered, and they quieted down a bit.  
  
"Yeah, we should try and-- get this stuff as soon as possible." said Remus, who had remembered the reason they were sitting in a dark bathroom. "And I guess we ought to go. We're not really getting much done in the dark."  
  
There was a whispered word and a flare like a match and Adara's wand and Sirius's sparked up at the same time. Adara's wand illuminated her face in which her rolled eyes stood out clearly, and Sirius's lit his big grin. "Honestly, man, are you a wizard or aren't you?" he demanded, propping up the wand in the soft candle wax left in the dish.  
  
"Where were we?" asked Remus, ignoring Sirius.  
  
"We were ahem-- trying to figure out how to get all this stuff." replied Adara, holding her wand up to the page and running her finger down the list of ingredients.  
  
"Well?" asked Sirius pointedly.  
  
"Well what?" she said in an irritated sort of voice, sitting back against the wall.  
  
"Well, what's the plan, Miss Idea Machine?"  
  
"Hopping hippogriffs, I don't know!" exploded Adara. "I got us the book! What more do you want from me?" She spread her hands palm-up in front of her.  
  
"All right, all right!" interloped James quickly. "Shut up the both of you. Most of the stuff we need, we can get from Professor Ankor's dangerous ingredients cabinet. Do you think we can get the rest of it in Hogsmeade?" he questioned.  
  
Adara and Sirius scanned the page. "Oh, without a doubt." she said positively. "We can snag it next trip. Right before Christmas."  
  
They all sighed loudly. "I didn't know this was going to take this long." Sirius said unhappily. "When do we get started?"  
  
Adara shrugged in the semi-darkness. "As soon as possible, I guess. Tomorrow's Saturday-- I can probably get most of this stuff from Ankor's lab after breakfast, she's never there. And even if she is, she won't punish me half as bad as she'll punish any of you."  
  
"True." agreed James. "So she'll get the base, and we can get started right after that."  
  
"Yay!" said Remus hopefully.  
  
There was a quiet moment. "One thing's for sure." Adara remarked suddenly. "Good grief, this is really not going to be easy."  
  
***  
  
The next morning when Adara woke up in the Slytherin dungeons, tingling excitement ran though her. James had gotten them the book, and now it was her turn to show them how brave she was. She couldn't believe she was about to break into a professor's private stores, but she was  
  
perfectly willing. She wanted to be an Animagus incredibly badly.  
  
She bounced excitedly out of bed and looked out the window. Thick snow was falling ,so she pulled on her woolen robes and lucky blue and purple striped socks and started down toward the Great Hall.  
  
She was walking through the twisting passages that connected the Slytherin dungeons to the hall when she was approached by someone whom she was not at all fond of: Lucius Malfoy. He was just one year older then she was, and acted like he owned at least part of Hogwarts and all the students in it. Almost everyone tried to stay away from him, except a small group of his minions waiting to obey his every beck and call. And he walked up without saying "hello."  
  
"What do you think you're doing, Adara?" he demanded abruptly, startling her out of her plans for the afternoons's escapades.  
  
"Walking to breakfast, and you?" she asked mildly, walking a little faster. He might be older, but she was quicker.  
  
"You know what I mean, you-- Why do you insist on consorting with those Mudbloods, those trashy Gryffindors?" he said, striding in front of her and blocking her way.  
  
"That is not your business. At all." she said calmly. "I have somewhere to be, so...I'll just be going now."  
  
"It is my business. You are a Slytherin and a pureblood and obviously superior. "We're supposed to be exclu-"  
  
Before either of them had a chance to get really steamed, Sirius appeared calmly from around the corner. "Good morning." he said cooly. And before Adara had a chance to register, he had his arm around her shoulders. Malfoy just stared at them with an expression of extreme distaste before  
  
spinning on one Armani loafer and stalking back toward the dungeons.  
  
Sirius let go of Adara and backed away. "Sorry." he muttered. "I just... I didn't think."  
  
"No." she told him, picking a fleck of lint off her robe sleeve. "It was nice. Thanks for getting rid of him." They walked the rest of the way to the Great Hall in silence.  
  
***  
  
"Sirius, are you all right?" asked James, piling scrambled eggs onto his plate. "You're acting weird."  
  
"Mmm? No, I'm fine." he said, buttering his muffin like it was of deathly importance.  
  
Remus looked up from his omelette. "You sure?"  
  
"Yeah, why?" replied Sirius, taking a gigantic bite of the muffin.  
  
"Well, for one thing, that was a cranberry muffin." James pointed out. "You're allergic to cranberries."  
  
Sirius dropped the muffin. "Oh, for the love of Quidditch-"  
  
***  
  
I need reviews to live! Please! That's all I ask, I don't get paid for this, I just do it because I like it and because *sniff* reviews make me happy! Is the guilt thing working yet? -Noelle 


	4. Hives and Hysterical Herbage

A/N: Hey! Here's the next installement!  
  
  
  
The Marauders Part 4- Hives and Hysterical Herbage  
  
  
  
"Hey." Adara greeted Remus airily, sliding into the empty chair next to him. "Where's-"  
  
"Hupthifal wimpth." he replied through a mouthful of sausage.  
  
"Hospital wing?" asked Adara, who, being best friends with four males, was getting quite used to food-speak. "Why? What did Peter do now, put Dissolution Solution on his waffles instead of maple syrup or something?"  
  
Remus swallowed. "Not Peter. Sirius accidentally ate a cranberry muffin, and you know what that does to him."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"He's been acting sort of funny lately. You know anything about that?" he continued in an innocent tone of voice, watching her face carefully. Remus always had an underlying, wolflike sort of sense; he could perceive when something was bothering someone, or hurting them.  
  
"No." she said positively. "James and Peter-"  
  
"Went with him." finished Remus. "I've been left to tell you where they were."  
  
"Thought so." she told him as the last of the students filtered out to their weekend activities. "Shall we go?"  
  
"Sure." he said, standing up.  
  
They walked out together. "You all right, Adara?" Remus asked curiously.  
  
"Mm hmm." she said distractedly. 'Fine. Tired.' She faked a huge yawn.  
  
"I'm not surprised,' he grinned. 'we were up until, what?"  
  
"About two, I think. Oh, hey, listen, I had an idea."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Instead of that bathroom, we can meet in the Shrieking Shack." she told him triumphantly.  
  
Remus's face fell. "Oh, Adara, I spend way more time in there then I care to already."  
  
"It's for a good cause!" she insisted.  
  
He hesitated. "Well, ask Sirius and James."  
  
"Oh, fine, be that way." she snorted as she pushed open the hospital wing door. Adara seemed to be in a particularly foul mood at the moment.  
  
James and Peter nodded greeting as they entered. "Is he.." Adara asked warily.  
  
"Nah, he's all right." James assured her. "Bit itchy."  
  
They walked over to Sirius, who was covered with swelled red splotches. "Don't you dare laugh," he said crankily to Adara, who promptly sat in between James and Remus on  
  
he bed across from his and smirked.  
  
"Nice look you got goin' there, Black." she cracked. If looks could kill, she would have left the room in a basket.  
  
"Not funny." he responded furiously, scratching his neck with angry vigour.  
  
James grinned wickedly. "I don't know, Sirius, red is a good colour for you." he commented innocently. Sirius hurled a pillow at him, and he dodged it. "Shaddup! Shaddup!"  
  
"No, Sirius, we're really sorry to see you here." said Adara, with an extremely sweet-- and extremely fake-- smile. "In fact, I brought you some flowers." She pulled a perfect bouquet of lavender out of her sleeve and handed them to him.  
  
He smiled too, and it was a lucky thing his face was already red. "Thanks."  
  
Remus snorted loudly.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Nothing, nothing." James jumped in. "Well, Sirius, we'll be seeing you."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"We've got to go, Sirius. "Adara said. "We have--- you know-- a plan?"  
  
Sirius nodded glumly. "I was just hoping for a little company."  
  
"Don't worry," Remus assured him, hurrying Adara out in front of him. "We'll be back later."  
  
"You promise?" he asked suspiciously. James, who was propelling Remus out the door, smiled and nodded.  
  
"Of course!" chimed in Peter, bringing up the rear. "Bye!"  
  
Sirius settled back onto his pillow and yawned. Well, the day was off the a good start, he thought sarcastically. He surveyed his surroundings.  
  
Nothing too exciting. Empty beds in a row, except for one Slytherin girl who had been sneezing violently since he'd arrived and looked extremely unpleasant. Sirius sighed and decided to check if he was still covered with blotches.  
  
He turned to face the brass bedpost next to him and his eyes grew wide.  
  
His hair was bright, electric blue.  
  
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
Adara was giggling.  
  
"Shhh!" James said, barely containing his own laughter. "What were you thinking?"  
  
"It's payback for turning all my ink pink!" Adara declared. "Oh, dear, I'm a poet and I didn't know it."  
  
Remus burst out laughing and sat down in the middle of the hall, leaning against the wall and gasping for breath. "He's not Sirius Black, he's Sirius Blue!"  
  
"Seriously, Adara, that was cruel!" laughed James, holding his stomach.  
  
"How'd you do it, anyway?" Peter asked, through chuckles.  
  
"Those flowers." she explained. "Turn your hair blue if you touch the stem. I handed them to him with my sleeve wrapped around my hand, see?"  
  
"Ingenious." Remus snickered. "He'll have your head."  
  
"Yeah, well, he'll have to catch me first." Adara said brightly, wiping her eyes with her robes. "I believe I'm done with my hysterics. Shall we go?"  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
Sirius slumped grudgingly against his pillows. "What a little... I can't believe... I'll kiss her! Kill her, kill her, I'll kill her!" He looked around to make sure nobody had heard his little slip of the tongue, and then bellowed, "Madam Pomfrey!"  
  
She banged a door open and glared at him. "Punk wizards-"  
  
"No, no, no!" Sirius tried to explain hastily. "It was a-- an accident."  
  
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "I'm sure. Next, you'll be punching holes in your ear with a fork so you can get four earrings in--"  
  
"It was!" he persisted. "Change it back, please?" Secretly, he didn't think that was such a bad idea...  
  
She walked away and came back with a bottle of all-purpose Magical Mishap restorer. "My, my, how do you get into these things?"  
  
Sirius watched her. "I dunno. Just unlucky, I guess." He hurriedly swept the lavender flowers under his pillow and tried to look innocent.  
  
"Unlucky, indeed!" Madam Pomfrey snorted, measuring out a large spoonful of the thick purple solution. She stuck it into his mouth before he could protest.  
  
"Mmmmmmph!" Sirius said queasily, the spoon protruding from his lips. The liquid tasted horrible.  
  
"Don't complain." she snapped.  
  
Sirius yanked the spoon out. "Yuck! What's in this stuff?!"  
  
The nurse shook her head. "Trust me, you don't want to know." she advised him wisely , screwing the lid back onto the bottle.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
While Sirius was trying to keep down his breakfast back in the hospital wing, Peter, James, Remus, and Adara climbed up four flights and then one more long, winding staircase to the Astronomy Tower.  
  
Adara sighed. "I thought we were nicking the stuff from Potions."  
  
James stopped for a minutes, adjusted his glasses, and consulted a parchment. "Well, you wanted to start at the beginning. We have to collect this Greensavage Root extract first."  
  
Peter trotted up to him and peeked over his shoulder. "Then why are we heading up to Astronomy?"  
  
"Because Greensavage plants attack if they're not collected under the right astrological conditions." explained Remus, whose second favourite subject was Herbology.  
  
Adara pushed open the door. "Okay, good, nobody's here." They filed in.  
  
Remus drifted immediately over to the window. "I love it up here. Look, you can see everything."  
  
He was right, The sweeping view covered most of the northern grounds, including the lake and a good portion of the Quidditch field. White flakes fluttered thickly down from the grey sky.  
  
That reminded James of something. "Oh, no. Tonight's Quidditch game might be canceled."  
  
Adara, who was pulling books out of a shelf and handing them to Peter, grumbled. "That's not fair. It's not supposed to snow in November."  
  
"Uuuurgh." groaned Peter, as she added another thick text full of star charts to the already sizeable pile he was carrying.  
  
"Actually, it probably won't." pointed out Remus, perching on the window seat. "I mean, you do play in torrential rain, why should snow be any different?"  
  
"I can't catch the Snitch if I'm busy freezing to death." James contradicted.  
  
Adara snorted, pulled a chair out and plopped into it. "Who said you'll get it anyway? Slytherin's got a fine Seeker this year."  
  
"What, Marius Halfelven? He spends half his day walking into walls because he can't take his eyes off his mirror!" Remus laughed.  
  
"Yeah, well." she admitted. "But when we do get him to put it down, he's pretty good. But I guess the task of accumulating points will fall to us Chasers. I'd say we have a pretty good shot, with one of your Beaters out of commission."  
  
Peter dropped the stack of volumes down on one of the tables with a series of heavy thuds. "That's right. Sirius was covered with hives."  
  
"I wish he was here, I'm no good at Astronomy." James admitted, taking a seat next to Adara and opening one of the dusty tomes.  
  
"Me either." said three voices.  
  
Adara winced. "Okay, no problem. I'm sure we can handle this. Remus, um... get over here."  
  
Remus left the window and took his spot at the table, picking up a thick book bound in leather. "Okay. What are we looking for?"  
  
  
  
James fished the parchment out of his pocket and handed it to him. "I think we need the star charts."  
  
A large portion of the walls of the circular room were covered with lots of pigeonholes. Each one contained a star chart, several for every day of the year.  
  
"I'll get 'em." Adara jumped up. "All right, here we go. November 22, 23, 24, and 25 to start." She extracted the rolled parchments out of the pigeonholes and dropped them in a pile on the table. Then, she seized the one marked Nov. 23 and unrolled it.  
  
Peter snatched James's scribbles from Remus and read them aloud. "Mmm. The roots of the Greensavage plant have to be collected during the late waxing moon..."  
  
"Damn." muttered Remus. The late waxing moon was not his favourite time of the month.  
  
"What's an oris?" asked Peter, screwing up his face.  
  
James blinked and opened a few books. "Um, I think it's a galaxy."  
  
Remus turned one of the star charts upside down, trying to decipher it. "It said when the Nebulae Oris was in the blue stage...I don't see any blue stars here!"  
  
"Perhaps it would help if you took those glasses off, Moony?" James said, not looking up from his own chart.  
  
Adara plucked Remus's round yellow sunglasses off his face. "Better?"  
  
He consulted the parchment again. "Nope. They're still not blue."  
  
"Must be the wrong phase, then." James commented.  
  
Peter waved his parchment in the air. "This one's the blue stage."  
  
"Wrong nebulae. That's Erisi." Adara said, taking a look at it. "We want Oris."  
  
There were several minutes of silence as Remus fished a few more charts out of the pigeonholes. "Why are there so many? It'll take us years to go through these."  
  
"Here's the blue stage of Oris, but it's during the waning moon." James sighed, rolling another scroll up.  
  
Adara groaned. "Where's Sirius when you actually need him?"  
  
  
  
"We could wait until he's out of the hospital wing." suggested Peter.  
  
"Nah." Adara mumbled. James and Remus looked at each other, but knew better then to disagree.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
An hour later, the four had moved from the table to the floor and were surrounded by open books, unrolled parchments, and scribbled calculations.  
  
Adara sank backwards and stared at the ceiling. "I give up!"  
  
Remus looked around. "Think how long it'll take to clean up this mess."  
  
"It's almost worse than our dormitory." James said dryly.  
  
"This is bloody impossible. This would be bloody impossible even if Sirius was here." Remus groaned.  
  
"If Sirius was here, he'd have the right chart in five minutes." Peter remarked.  
  
Adara sniffled. "It's not our fault we're not good at Astronomy."  
  
James stood up and started gathering star charts in his arms. "We better clean up. It's almost time for dinner."  
  
The other three followed suite, slipping the parchments back into their pigeonholes with a depressed air.  
  
"Hey." said Remus suddenly.  
  
Adara looked up with a slightly sour expression. "What?"  
  
"Here." He slid his fingers deep into one of the seemingly unoccupied holes and loosened something inside it. "Look! We didn't see this one."  
  
They gathered around the chart that Remus unfurled and stared at it in amazement.  
  
"Nebulae Oris." James said in disbelief.  
  
Adara had a similar astonished expression. "Blue phase!"  
  
Peter blinked. "Waxing moon?"  
  
"And look here- November 25!" Remus smiled. "That's  
  
tonight!"  
  
Running a hand through her hair, Adara grinned. "Well, if that isn't dumb luck, I don't know what is."  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
"Okay. This way." James murmured. "Past Hagrid's cabin."  
  
The four of them slunk slowly beyond his window, which was shining and flickering with firelight, illuminating the trees in the fading twilight.  
  
The booming, cheerful voice of Hagrid floated out to them, talking apparently to some sort of strange beast.  
  
"There ya go, t'caterpillars, eat them nice caterpillars, not t'fingers, there."  
  
Adara snickered and shifted under her corner of the Invisibility Cloak. "Wonder what he's got in there."  
  
"Something that no doubt likes the taste of human flesh." Remus responded darkly.  
  
Peter coughed. "How nice."  
  
"James, do you know where we're going?" Adara hissed. "I can't see a thing except the back of Remus's head."  
  
"Hush. I know exactly where we're going, we're going right to the edge of the forest. Okay, everybody go a few steps to the left--"  
  
The four oscillated a bit, like some sort of oversized paramecium, trying to stay under the cloak.  
  
"Ouch!" Peter's voice came sharply.  
  
Adara's response was just a bit irritated. "What?"  
  
"Remus stepped on my foot." he answered pathetically.  
  
Remus snorted. "Sorry, I didn't see it."  
  
"Well, considering that we are under an Invisibility Cloak..." James's voice pointed out with a tinge of sarcasm from the head of the pack.  
  
Adara couldn't do anything but laugh.  
  
"Okay. Cloak off." James said optimistically. "Look, there they are."  
  
Peter pulled the sheet of silvery fabric off the group and they regarded a patch of innocent looking plants, which had leathery dark green leaves and purple flowers.  
  
Remus looked up at the sky. "I'll just go with the somewhat farfetched hope that we didn't make a mistake with those star charts. Here, I brought my Potions knife, let's do it." He fished a curved blade with a wooden handle out of his robes and handed it to James. Adara pressed an empty corked bottle into his hand and stepped back a little.  
  
James took a deep breath and, as he always did when he was nervous, adjusted his glasses.  
  
He strode forward, took hold of one of the gnarled plants, and uprooted it.  
  
Adara inhaled sharply.  
  
James nicked the root with Remus's knife and held the flask to the cut. He only had got a drop of the thick black liquid before he was thrown backward forcefully, and knocked Adara to the ground with him.  
  
"Ouch!" she cried. And then, "Oh, no."  
  
The seemingly harmless little plant was pulling the rest of its roots out of the ground, and there seemed to be no end to them. It rose high above their heads, the moonlight reflecting off the leathery leaves, the pretty purple flowers unfurling to reveal rows of sharp incisors. Whiplike tendrils curled and uncurled menacingly around it.  
  
The plant and the four appraised each other for approximately three seconds, before one of the humongous blooms lunged forward and snapped its many teeth half and inch from Remus's face.  
  
"We must have made a mistake." Adara panted.  
  
"That's impossible. We had all those star charts perfectly in line with the waxing moon cycle." James informed her.  
  
Peter took James's notes out of his robe pocket. "Yeah, we-"  
  
Adara suddenly snatched the notes from Peter and unrolled them. "Oh, NO! Peter, you dim wit!"  
  
"What, what?!" panicked Remus.  
  
"WANING moon! WANING moon, you idiot!" she shouted, whacking Peter over the head with the parchment. "Great! Now we're all gonna die!"  
  
"It's not my fault, it's James's horrible handwriting!" squealed Peter.  
  
"We are not all going to die!" decided James, ignoring him. "I had the right parchment, remember? We just have to find it again. Now the only problem is-"  
  
"HOW TO GET RID OF THAT THING!" Adara shrieked, jerking her thumb at the gigantic green plant, which was flinging its vines around and spraying them with some kind of thick foam.  
  
"Rrrrps." Remus gritted his teeth, backing away.  
  
"Ropes!" shouted Peter. "Ropes are good. Um- What's the spell for ropes?"  
  
Remus darted back and forth, his wand out. "I don't remember, that was the week I was sick with Dragonpox, what's your excuse?"  
  
A long tendril whipped out of nowhere and wrapped around Adara's arm, leaving a long pink welt. She winced, but didn't cry out. "Something. Do anything." She pressed  
  
up against a tree trunk.  
  
"Ropes. Ropes." James muttered. "Fire?"  
  
"No, we can't use fire, somebody'll see." Adara thought aloud.  
  
"Ferula!" Peter shouted suddenly.  
  
Adara peeked out from behind her trunk. "Bandages?"  
  
"Learnt it in Potions last week when Professor Ankor fixed my arm." Peter answered proudly.  
  
White linen wraps started spinning around the leviathan herbage, binding the long green whips to the stem. The purple snapping blooms were quickly muzzled, and all four of them watched in astonishment as the plant became quite mummy-like in appearance.  
  
"I cannot believe that worked." James croaked.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
I'm sorry. I probably won't get any reviews for this part. It's incredibly mundane and stupid. I was industriously working on the later chapters until I realised that I couldn't post them until I posted this! I'm just really obsessed with the middle and end of this story. Please, if you could find it  
  
in your heart to review....-Noelle  
  
Oh ya, also, if anybody is interested in being my beta reader (I need one very badly) tell me in your reviews or just e-mail me. My e-mail is a_noelle_m@hotmail.com 


	5. Wish Upon a Star

The Marauders Part 5: Wish Upon A Star  
  
  
  
A/N Hmm. I actually don't have much to say about this part. I had fun writing the Quidditch, though, ;) Perhaps you'd like to review and tell me what you think. -Noelle  
  
Oh, PS! Somebody told me James was a Chaser, but I think he makes a better Seeker, and c'mon, it's a fanfic! I write slash too, and you don't hear JK telling us Harry & Co swing on the other side of the rainbow, do you?  
  
  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
Sirius strolled into the Great Hall for breakfast the next day completely blotch-free and back to his normal raven-haired state. He did, however, look as though his new motto was "Live for Revenge."  
  
James caught a glimpse of Adara looking up and smiling broadly from among the Slytherins before turning back to her pot pie. There was a broad white strip of bandage around her wrist, but  
  
she grinned as Sirius sat down.  
  
"Some friends you lot are." he grumbled grudgingly.  
  
"Aw, c'mon, Sirius." said Remus. "It's not like she took pictures, is it?"  
  
  
  
Sirius snorted. "Dunno if she's sunk that low yet. So," he lowered his voice, "did you get the stuff?"  
  
"No." said James glumly.  
  
"No, and we nearly died besides that." Remus said calmly. "Remind us never to try an astronomy experiment without an astronomy expert ever again."  
  
"What did you do?" Sirius groaned.  
  
Peter explained.  
  
"You did what? Why?" he asked in disbelief. "Why didn't you just ask Hagrid to get it for you?"  
  
Guilty silence followed his statement. "Because . . . we . . . ah . . . uhm . . . " James smacked himself in the forehead, knocking his glasses askew.  
  
Sirius smiled dryly. "I see. Didn't think? Well, now, how are we supposed to get the-" Half of the Gryffindor table swivelled to look at him, and he lowered his voice. "You know, the stuff?" He pushed his leftover plateful of strawberry ice cream to the center of the table, and it disappeared.  
  
"I wouldn't worry about that." said a voice from above his head. Sirius tilted his chin back and looked up at Adara. She was smiling diabolically and pulled a tiny corked bottle out of one of  
  
the folds of her robes. One thing the Marauders had learned about Adara was that she had many, many pockets, and carried a wide variety of pocket luggage. But that wasn't much of a surprise. Most magicians carry all sorts of things around with them.  
  
  
  
Remus stared, and rubbed his eyes as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "I probably shouldn't ask, but....What's that?"  
  
  
  
"It's the sap. Here, I got your knife back, too. It was really easy. I leaned out the window of the Astronomy tower and aimed a couple of Summoners at that stupid plant." She smiled at James  
  
and pointed a knowing finger at him. "Which, by the way, I forgot to thank you for teaching me."  
  
Students began trickling slowly out of the Hall, yawning, heading back to their various common rooms or to other less permissible activities, and Adara slipped into a chair vacated by another Gryffindor and almost immediately stood up again. "Hold on a second. I gotta go talk to Lily, I'll be right back."  
  
  
  
She walked quickly toward a Titian-haired girl who was about to leave the Hall. James, Sirius and company, true to their inquisitive nature, strained their ears to hear what they were talking about.  
  
  
  
"What's Adara talking to Evans for?" Sirius whispered. "She's a Gryffindor, isn't she?"  
  
"She's in our year, you doofus. Shut up and maybe we'll find out!"  
  
"...so, do you think we can work on it tomorrow?" Adara was saying, fiddling with a piece of her long black hair.  
  
Lily sighed. "I suppose we'll probably have to. What was it on again? Finding and Banishing charms?"  
  
"Sadly, true. Brilliantly fascinating stuff, isn't it?" Adara answered sarcastically. The two of them had a short laugh. "Right then, tomorrow after the Quidditch game's over. Night!" The other girl pushed open the hall door and left, and Adara returned to the table.  
  
"I could murder some allsorts right now. Bit of a sore throat."  
  
"Take some of Pomfrey's Pepperup Potion." suggested Remus.  
  
Adara looked astonished at the suggestion. "And go 'round smoking at the ears for a day? I don't think so."  
  
Peter pulled a roll of them out of his pocket and offered her one, which she took gratefully and popped into her mouth. "So, Sirius, how are we feeling this evening?"  
  
Sirius ignored her and acted as if the Hogwarts banner draped opposite him was the most captivating thing he'd ever seen.  
  
James laughed, leaned across the spotless mahogany table, and said in a loud stage whisper "I don't think Sirius is talking to you."  
  
"How could you tell?" Remus answered, sotto voice.  
  
Peter nodded. "He seems to be mildly annoyed, eh?" The enchanted ceiling steadily grew darker as night fell.  
  
Adara smiled. "Aw, c'mon, Sirius, don't get all stroppy. It was just a joke, you know."  
  
He looked away and started whistling a Pink Floyd song.  
  
"You don't look that bad with blue hair!"  
  
Silence.  
  
Adara sighed. "Right, he's going to make me do this the hard way, isn't he? James, have you got any parchment?"  
  
"Probably." he answered, pulling a roll out of his bag. Adara fished a long black quill out of somewhere inside her robes and started to write. Remus read over her shoulder.  
  
  
  
My Formal Apology to Sirius Black,  
  
  
  
it said, in glistening purple-green ink.  
  
  
  
I, Adara Rhiannon Mellyndar, hereby promise never to turn  
  
1 Sirius  
  
  
  
She paused, the quill hovering over the last word. "Hold on, Sirius, what is your middle name?"  
  
No answer. "It's - ah. I don't have one."  
  
"Oh, come on, it can't be worse then mine." she said impatiently. "Rhiannon was an evil witch in the fourteenth century!"  
  
Remus grinned. "Or mine. Mine's the worst ever."  
  
"Oh, yeah?" Sirius said, unimpressed. "What is it?"  
  
"Julian. If anyone here can come up with a worse middle name then that, I'd love to hear it."  
  
"I'll take that challenge." James interrupted, laughing. "Mine's Mercutio!"  
  
Peter looked surprised. "Really?"  
  
"Well, yeah, my mum liked the play, but we're getting off the subject."  
  
"I feel inferior. My middle name's actually normal." Peter giggled. "It's Phillip."  
  
Adara tapped Sirius on the head with her quill. "Now that we've all shared, how about you?"  
  
"Do I have to?" he asked plaintively.  
  
"YES!" four voices answered him.  
  
"Promise never to tell anyone, ever." Sirius said grimly. "It's Elton."  
  
James rolled his eyes. "You thought that was worse then Mercutio?"  
  
"Or Julian?" Remus chimed in.  
  
Adara didn't say anything, but she suppressed a smile, bent her head and kept writing.  
  
-hereby promise never to turn Sirius E. Black's hair any  
  
unnatural colour ever again, on pain of having my own hair  
  
turned hot pink for twenty-four hours. And while I'm at it, I also  
  
promise never to make fun of his ridiculously swotty middle  
  
name, either. Also, I'm really, truly, very sorry.  
  
Sincerely, A. M. D. 26/11/72  
  
  
  
Adara folded the parchment three times and handed it to Sirius with a satisfied look on her face. "There, happy?" She stood up and picked her bag off the floor "I should be getting back to the  
  
dungeons. I'm dead tired, and I've got to get up early for the game tomorrow. Night, fellows."  
  
"Night, Adara."  
  
"Night, Adara."  
  
"G'night, Adara."  
  
"Apology accepted."  
  
She turned around and smiled at Sirius. "I know- wow, look!" She pointed upwards at the bewitched ceiling, where a shooting star streaked across the sky, leaving a glittering trail behind it.  
  
"Everyone, make a wish." Remus reminded them.  
  
James found himself thinking about Lily Evans, which was just a little odd. He'd never even looked at her before. She was sort of pretty, with that coppery hair...  
  
Remus wished that solar eclipses of the moon would become very common, at least until they had the potion done. Being a - what he was - he didn't even like to think the word - made him more miserable then any of his friends could ever guess.  
  
Peter wished that he would pass Transfiguration for the semester. That was in danger of not happening, unfortunately. Professor McGonagall had finally declared that he was hopeless.  
  
Adara made the same wish she always did - for peace on earth and good will toward everyone, but especially Slytherins, because somehow, they always managed to get the worse end of the deal, whatever it might be.  
  
And Sirius . . . well, I'm sure you know what Sirius wished for.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
The next morning, which was Sunday, dawned grey, cold, and flurrying. The Quidditch teams  
  
gathered shivering on the field, the brown grass crunching under their feet. There were only two girls on the Slytherin house team and they were both Chasers: Adara and Cirrus Caranni, a pretty  
  
third year girl.  
  
Thrawn Kelley was the Slytherin captain. He was a big sixth-year with steely grey eyes and dark blonde hair. Oddly, everyone liked Thrawn, even if they were in Gryffindor. He wasn't exactly  
  
the brightest crayon in the box, but he was unusually amiable, especially for a Slytherin.  
  
He arrived with a thick green scarf wrapped around most of his face. "All right!" he barked through the wool. "For today's game, remember what we practiced. We're gonna try Wronski -  
  
Feints, Sarcaein Chaser maneuvers, and the Gurney defensive ploy. Now remember what I been tellin' ya, don't do any of that fancy flyin' in circles stuff you Chasers were doin' at last practice. I don't want any of ya to get another good crack like the one Malcolm here caught." He motioned to Adara's friend Malcolm Flagg.  
  
"Yes, we wouldn't want me to have to wear an eyepatch again, would we?" Malcolm said dryly.  
  
"But anyway," Thrawn continued. "Let's at least for once try to have a game where nobody gets seriously injured, okay?"  
  
Adara sighed. "This is supposed to be a pep talk?"  
  
"And I want a nice clean fight -" Heavy grumbles from the entire team followed this statement. "That means, no hexin' the Gryffindors, and no turnin' the Beater clubs into marmalade, and  
  
especially no makin' ghost Snitches. That's just plain evil."  
  
"So are we!" said about four people. Ghost Snitches were a popular Slytherin way of distracting the other team's Seeker. You created a phantom Snitch that he would chase, but when he thought he had it, it would evaporate into a tiny puff of golden smoke with a little "Heh heh!". This had happened on several occasions.  
  
"Yeah, well, not on my watch. It's not nice to torment Seekers! So keep it clean, and keep it safe!"  
  
Andre Epyna, a sixth-year Beater, rubbed his arms to keep himself warm. "Where's Halfelven? It appears our Seeker is missing."  
  
"Oh, that's right, he's got a most awful case of Dragonpox. We're using our replacement Seeker today." Thrawn reassured the team. "Thank goodness we have one. Where is he?"  
  
"Here." said a voice from behind Adara. She looked over her shoulder. Pushing through the half-frozen spectators who stood a few yards away was Lucius Malfoy. Her hands tightened around her broomstick and the cold knuckles turned ashen.  
  
"You play Quidditch?" she said loudly.  
  
Lucius brushed several flakes of frost of his otherwise perfectly tailored green robes and smiled, showing a lot of straight, pointed white teeth. "Of course. This is the first time I've gotten to play with you, though, now that Marius is ill."  
  
Adara, who was feeling more then a little ill herself, escaped and jogged over to the Gryffindor team, who were doing warmups. Then she dropped to the cold ground and started doing pushups  
  
in between Sirius and James.  
  
"Something wrong, Adara?" James grunted.  
  
"Oh, you'll never guess." Adara panted peevishly, staring down at the silver rings that decorated her fingers, mottled from the cold. "Malfoy, that ridiculous prat! He's our backup Seeker! How did that happen? Why do I get all the bad luck?"  
  
Sirius looked past her and caught James's eye. "Well, Jamesie-boy, looks like you'll have no trouble getting the Snitch today, eh?"  
  
Adara made a face. "This doesn't mean Gryffindor'll win, you know."  
  
The two boys leapt to their feet and James extended as hand to help Adara off the frozen ground, and Sirius spun her around and sized her up.  
  
"What on earth are you doing? Or don't I want to know?"  
  
"I'm trying to decide the best place to aim a Bludger at." he joked. Seeing the wrath on her face, he quicky added "Kidding! Kidding!"  
  
She slapped his arm. "You better be."  
  
"Mellyndar!" bellowed Thrawn good-naturedly. "Fraternizin' with the enemy, I see?"  
  
"We'll return her intact, I promise." James yelled back.  
  
Sirius turned to Adara. "Want me to hit a couple at his face and see if I can rearrange it a little?" He winked and brushed a lock of black hair out of his eyes.  
  
"Could you? That's sweet." she laughed, polishing the end of her broom with a sleeve of her green woolen robes. "I'd better go. Good luck!"  
  
"You too." James said. "And promise not to cry later, when we beat the pants off you!" he added, with a fiendish grin.  
  
"Ah, we'll see about that, Potter!" she called, jogging back to her own team.  
  
Sirius snorted. "They haven't a chance with that swine Malfoy. You'll have the Snitch in five seconds." He pulled a tail-twig clipper out of his robes and handed it to James, who had lost his.  
  
"Here."  
  
"Thanks." James replied, shearing several rogue twigs off the end of his Thunderstorm III. "Those've been bothering me."  
  
"Care to go kick some Slytherin arse?" Sirius asked cheerfully, mounting his broom.  
  
James stuck his tongue out and tasted a few of the light flakes that spiraled down. "Right!"  
  
They strode off to their own team. James was the captain, because their old captain, who was a fifth year, had quit Quidditch after a particularly nasty match with Slytherin. In that specific incident, fifty ghost Snitches had been whizzing around his head and distracting him from tending the hoops. He had claimed it drove him half - insane, and retired from the sport forever. Or so he said. To make a long story short, James had been elected captain unanimously.  
  
He had a very short pep speech. "Okay, guys, we're gonna cream them, right? Right! Everybody off!"  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
Fifteen minutes after the whistle had been blown and the two teams had kicked off, there was a fierce battle ensuing between the Slytherin Chasers and the Gryffindor Beaters. Remus, who  
  
had been drafted into being commentator, was outdoing himself.  
  
Up in the small floating booth used for Quidditch observation, he swivelled around in his chair and leaned into the magical megaphone. "The rivalry between the two houses is more then  
  
apparent in today's match, ladies and gentleman!" he offered to the amazingly large number of students who had shown up in the flurries to watch the game. "The Slytherin team has the Quaffle - Flagg carrying it towards the goal, now if I remember correctly, his aim isn't that good - whoa! The Quaffle is stolen by Alden Gant and passed to Blossom - Gryffindor scores - uh oh, the  
  
Slytherins are calling a time, they look disgruntled -"  
  
  
  
"- DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN!" Adara and Cirrus were shouting at Malcolm down on the field.  
  
"Alright, and we're back in the air! Slytherin reclaims possession of the Quaffle and - ouch, Mellyndar hit in the face with a Bludger! She's bloodied her nose, folks, but she looks okay!"  
  
Remus called, studying Adara with his telescope. "She's - oh dear, she's about to get her revenge on the Gryffindor Beater, Sirius Black - NO MAGIC! NO MAGIC!"  
  
The young yellow-eyed referee, Madam Hooch, screeched up to where Adara was yanking her wand out of her sleeve and seized it. "No! No! How many times do I have to tell you Slytherins, no magic!"  
  
Remus resumed. "Gryffindor has the Quaffle and it's being repeatedly tossed back and forth through the north hoop by Gant and Blossom! Where's the Slytherin keeper?"  
  
  
  
"Yeah, that's right, where is Thrawn?" Adara yelled to Andre Epyna.  
  
"Got hit in the arm, he's over there!" he shouted back, pointing at the south hoop.  
  
Malcolm and Cirrus sped over to help guard the hoops. Adara caught another Bludger sharply with the end of her broomstick and send it whizzing towards the third Gryffindor Chaser,  
  
Charlot Wilkes. It struck her in the thigh and she grimaced in pain.  
  
Lucius motioned to Andre. "Get 'em away from the hoops!"  
  
"Fifty-zero to Gryffindor!" Remus roared.  
  
WHACK! Andre hit one of the Bludgers toward Julia Blossom and missed by a good yard. Luckily, it distracted her, and she dropped the Quaffle before she could pass it. Adara snatched the  
  
opportunity to swoop in and grab the red sphere. Before the other Gryffindor Beater could attack her, she passed it to Cirrus, who was behind the middle Slytherin hoop. Cirrus had the best broom  
  
on the whole team. She streaked like lighting toward the Gryffindor goals, narrowly missing colliding with James. Adara and Malcolm flocked her, making sure no Beaters managed to get the Quaffle away. When the reached the north hoop, Cirrus pummeled the ball and it flew through the hoop.  
  
"Fifty - ten to Gryffindor! The Slytherins are using the lesser-known Sarcaein Chaser maneuver, in which the Chasers form a triangle shape around the hoops and play a sort of game of Keep-  
  
Away -it's working very well! Fifty - thirty!" Remus paused to get a drink of water. "Black, the Gryffindor Beater, attempts to break up the formation, but he's not going to get away with that  
  
if I know the Slytherins!" Before Sirius could knock Adara out of the way, she pitched the Quaffle through the hoop again and yanked his long hair. Malcolm and Cirrus were roughing up Julia Blossom and Darren Whitefly, the other Gryffindor Beater, was trying to stop them.  
  
"DIRTY QUIDDITCH!" James yelled from above all of them.  
  
"The Gryffindor Keeper, Sneed, breaks up the fight and steals the Quaffle from Caranni. Still no sign of the Snitch, judging by the looks of frustration on Malfoy and Potter ... Oh! Mellyndar  
  
and Flagg distract Sneed and take the Quaffle, but Aldan Gant swoops in from above and gets it back! Mellyndar streaks toward the Slytherin goals and - collides with the Slytherin  
  
seeker! Ohhh, that looked painful!"  
  
Adara was now the proud owner of a black eye along with her bloodied nose. "Watch where the hell you're going!" she shrieked as she passed Lucius, who had a large gash above his right eyebrow.  
  
"Ladies and gentleman, I have never seen this many Quidditch injuries in such a short period of time! Whitefly and Gant carry the Quaffle toward the Slytherin hoops. Blossom has been  
  
temporarily incapacitated by the Slytherin Beater, but she'll be okay in a second - Wilkes detracting Thrawn over at the Slytherin end, Gryffindor about to score if he doesn't get it together quick!"  
  
Alden Gant whizzed past Adara's left ear carrying the Quaffle and being escorted by Darren Whitefly, who coincidentally was a very good-looking third year. Adara made a grab for the ball  
  
and missed by inches. Her fingers closed around air. "Aaaaarrrrrrgh! Malcolm, Cirrus, CATCH THEM!"  
  
Malcolm Flagg made a disgusting display of bravery for his usual craven self and screeched to a halt right in front of Gant. They collided and Alden dropped the Quaffle, where it was picked up by Cirrus and carried - once again - in the other direction.  
  
Remus was now bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. "Slytherin has the Quaffle again, it's being carried toward the south hoop by Cirrus Caranni, who is followed closely by Darren & Black. Nobody's gonna overtake her, however, on that shiny new..." Remus adjusted his telescope to read the name on Cirrus's broom, "...Hawkflight Seven! Sure enough, Caranni puts it through the hoop! Fifty-forty Gryffindor!"  
  
Meanwhile, Adara was comforting Malcolm, who had got the wind knocked out of him in the collision. The two Seekers, Lucius and James, were still circling overhead like two colourful  
  
overgrown turkey vultures. Thrawn glided back and forth in front of the three Slytherin hoops. Andre and the other Slytherin chaser, Neptune Retierus, smashed the Bludgers to each other trying to block the Gryffindors' way to the Slytherin hoops. Charlot Wilkes, Aldan Gant, and Julia Blossom were having immense difficulty evading the ricocheting black missiles.  
  
Andre suddenly noticed Sirius trying to keep Cirrus from scoring again as Remus racked up the Slytherin points. "Hey, Black! Catch this!" He hit one of the Bludgers at Sirius, and it bashed  
  
into his upper arm with a loud "crack!"  
  
"OUCH!" Sirius howled.  
  
Madam Hooch blew her whistle. "SLYTHERIN PENALTY!"  
  
"You didn't give them a penalty when Black hit Adara!" Malcolm screamed.  
  
"NONETHELESS!"  
  
The Slytherin team plotted quietly on the sidelines as Blossom took a shot at their goal and made it, of course.  
  
Thrawn gritted his teeth. "Remember what I said about not playing dirty?"  
  
Everyone nodded.  
  
"Forget all that! Forget it now! We gotta win! Everyone bets on the Gryffindors!"  
  
"I can't curse their brooms!" Adara pulled gloves out of somewhere inside her robes and put them on her freezing hands. "Madam Hooch took my wand."  
  
"Okay, then just try and confound Potter! Come on, everyone off."  
  
Before Lucius could mount his broom, Adara grabbed the front of his robes. "If you have to hurt James to get that Snitch, I'll kill you."  
  
"I thought you wanted to win." he said, detaching himself.  
  
"Don't think I won't make your life miserable." she growled, hopping on her old second-hand Dragonfang and raising up.  
  
Remus watched the Slytherins take off. "Gryffindor possession of the Quaffle, and the Slytherin chasers aren't happy about it! Flagg and Gant have a wrestling match over it and Wilkes grabs  
  
it while they're distracted. Unfortunately for her, she's being tailed by Cirrus, who's got a faster broom. Caranni takes the Quaffle and speeds in the opposite direction!"  
  
Adara zoomed above all the action and talked to James. "I'm supposed to be distracting you."  
  
James was freezing; his teeth chattered loudly. "What t-time is it?"  
  
"We've been playing for forty-five minutes. It'd be nice if one of you could catch the Snitch soon so that none of us catch pneumoniae."  
  
"I'm t-trying, Adara. I haven't seen it at all, well, I did see it once, but that was r-right before the p-penalty." he said with difficultly.  
  
Adara pulled off her knitted green gloves. "Here, James, wear these, will ya? You're making me feel bad, plus you need 'em more then I do. Repeatedly crashing into Gryffindors is keeping me nice and toasty."  
  
James attempted a smile, but his cheeks were numb. "Th-thanks. Usually I wouldn't be this c-cold, but I l-lost my scarf somewhere."  
  
"Sorry they're green."  
  
"N-nobody'll n-notice and I don't c-care. Now go away b-before Thrawn murders y-you." he said, yanking the thick fuzzy gloves on.  
  
Adara sped away toward the scene below her, which wasn't pretty. Andre had gotten angry at Darren for socking Malcolm in the jaw, and the three of them had apparently forgotten about  
  
Quidditch and were trying to kill each other. Cirrus and Julia Blossom were having a tug-of-war with the Quaffle, but neither could pull it away from the other. Adara zoomed through, grabbed it, and sped toward the Gryffindor goal before anyone even saw her properly.  
  
"Sixty-fifty Slytherin! No, make that seventy-fifty!" Remus called. "Gant goes in to take the Quaffle from Dragomiroff but she's decided to run for it instead, and makes a big loop around  
  
the field! The way it looks now - IT'S THE SNITCH!"  
  
Lucius and James, who had been circling at opposite ends of the field, both saw the little golden object at the same time. It was in the middle of all the action, twittering its little sparkly wings.  
  
Malfoy pushed his broom flat out, but James was just a better flyer. Gant had just managed to yank the Quaffle away from Adara when Remus vaulted out of his chair. "It's over!  
  
Gryffindor Seeker James Potter catches the Snitch and it's a final score of two hundred to seventy Gryffindor!"  
  
The crowd of people dressed in red mufflers and cloaks cheered madly. Adara descended onto the frozen ground and gave James and Sirius hugs, Remus hurried down from his post and dragged  
  
Peter out of his warm corner of the bleachers. "Congratulations, James!"  
  
"Yes, congratulations, James!" Adara said. Her lips were an interesting shade of blue. "But I hope you'll forgive me if I suggest we move in the direction of the school to warm up a little?"  
  
Sirius nodded. "I'm h-half frozen too. C'mon, let's go." The Quidditch players slung their brooms over their shoulders and headed off.  
  
They didn't look much like what they would become in their later years then. In Remus, it was possible to see the disheveled future Hogwarts professor, in Sirius quite reasonable to imagine  
  
a stubbled ex-con with a flying motorcycle, but not the others. The others looked less like a martyr, a traitor, and an exile etc. back then Severus Snape looked like a teddy bear.  
  
*~*~*~* 


	6. Catacomb Conundrums

The Marauders Part 6: Catacomb Conundrums  
  
Notes: Oh! I have a request. I have a little fanart for this story and maybe someday I'll get around to scanning it, when I get a new scanner, but I'm dying for some illustrations. DYING! If anybody would like to do a few doodles for me, I would be eternally grateful...if you want, email me ( and I'll send you the snippets I'd like visuals for. ;) One of them is in this chapter, as a matter of fact. Please, please, please! ~Noelle  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
"Okay. A two and a half foot essay ...each... on Finding and Banishing charms. All types?" Adara sighed, dumping a stack of books on the table she was sitting at with Lily. Adara spent a lot of time in the library and this was where she usually sat, a small circular table in the corner.  
  
"Yes. Long and short range Finding. Banishing evil curses and illnesses. And that's probably just the beginning." the red-haired girl answered heavily. "What did we do to deserve this?"  
  
"I think it's called being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Professor Flitwick was in a bad mood and we just happened to be standing in the hallway."  
  
James overheard her, ambled over, and sat down, his untidy hair hanging in his eyes. He grinned. "That's funny. The way I remember it, you two were 'just standing in the hallway' surrounded by fifty thousand butterflies that somehow managed to just appear, I suppose."  
  
Adara peeked out from the pile of texts in front of her. "People who explode things on purpose in Potions should not throw stones. I was trying to repair my bag, it was an accident."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, I'll take your word for it."  
  
Lily looked at him sideways and handed him one of the books. "Look, pretty boy, if you want to sit here, you'll have to help us."  
  
"Yes, mother." he said derisively, opening it and flicking hair off his glasses with a jerk of his head.  
  
"Now, children." Adara said, blowing dust off the cover of her own volume, "no fighting. We've got work to do."  
  
For several minutes there was no sound except the scratching of quills. Suddenly Adara threw hers down.  
  
"Bugger it! I can't concentrate today."  
  
James looked up. "Maybe it was getting clocked in the face with that Bludger?"  
  
"Oh, yeah. Remind me to give Sirius boils later." Adara replied offhandedly. "Anyway, sorry, Lily. I'll be back in a little while. For now, I think I'll just head back to the common room and practice my guitar. Or maybe take a nap."  
  
Lily closed her book too. "Nap. That idea certainly has its charms. When is this stupid thing due, anyway?"  
  
"Not for a whole week. James, you've been let off the hook." Adara called, carrying the pile of books back to the Charms shelf in the tall library stacks.  
  
"Joy." he replied dryly, slipping his glasses off his face and polishing them on his robes.  
  
The three of them gathered up their quills and parchments, shoved them into their book bags, and headed for the door.  
  
"See you two later," Lily voiced, "I don't know why I'm so tired, but I think it's the weather. My head is pounding."  
  
"Bye." Adara offered. "Hope you feel better."  
  
James's contribution was a huge yawn. "If you see Sirius in the common room, tell him I'll be back in a little while, okay?"  
  
"Mmkay." Lily nodded and headed in the general direction of Gryffindor Tower, leaving the other two alone outside the library. As soon as she was out of earshot, James snorted.  
  
"Couldn't concentrate, I'm sure. Where are you going?" he pressed, poking Adara in the arm.  
  
"No, really. I'm just going back to the dungeons and lie down for a little while." she replied evasively, brushing at an imaginary speck of dust on her robes. "Or did you want  
  
me to say that I'm going down to a secret vault deep underneath Hogwarts to study the Dark Arts?" She raised an eyebrow questioningly.  
  
"No, it's just... I can tell when you're lying...."  
  
"No lie! No lie! Headache! Common room!" Adara protested, holding up her palms.  
  
James laughed. "Okay, Adara. I just wish you'd let me in on it, whatever it may be." One pair of probing blue eyes stared into another pair of falsely innocent ones.  
  
"There's just no pleasing you, is there, Potter?" Adara sighed, pushing her hair behind her right ear and putting her hands on her hips.  
  
James stifled a laugh at seeing such a petite girl assume such an imposing stance. "Guess not." he said with a grin. "Well, if that's all you're gonna say, I'll be getting back to the Tower. Maybe I can catch Lily." He hefted his bag onto his shoulder. "See you at dinner."  
  
"See you," she repeated, taking off in the opposite direction.  
  
As James turned the corner into the south wing and disappeared, Adara exhaled a sigh of relief. She didn't like lying, but she had to get away from James before she saw something she really didn't want to see.  
  
She walked slowly, she footsteps echoing in the otherwise empty hallway, focusing on small noises to occupy her mind. The sound of sleet on the roof, and her own breathing.  
  
Adara didn't really have a headache, well, not the kind she'd said. She rarely got sick and on the off chance her head did hurt, she performed a simple Health Charm and it was gone in an instant. The reason she had been forced to leave the library was because she was a Seer, and this was a  
  
fact she didn't want anyone to suspect about her.  
  
Hogwarts students, she knew, weren't supposed to know how to see into the future until they had taken courses with Sybil Trelawney, the equivalent of one of those hick-carny sideshow tarot-card readers. But Adara saw things, and they weren't always good things, either. She hated being a  
  
Seer. Sometimes, if she only touched someone briefly, she got terrible visions in her head. By now, she had taught herself to block most of them, but sometimes, even if she was just sitting very close to someone, she was unable to force the images away.  
  
Once in awhile, if Adara was bored, she would read random people's futures, people she didn't know very well, or people she didn't like. But she would never, ever read Sirius, or James, or Remus, or Peter, or herself. She didn't want to know.  
  
She concentrated on her senses of hearing and sight until the pressure behind her eyes had lessened. Then she continued on to the entrance to the Slytherin common room, which was concealed next to a large tapestry of intertwined snakes.  
  
"Nosferatu." she said dully, and entered.  
  
It was as dark as usual inside. The high wing chairs by the fire were all occupied, and the green flames inside the candle sconces cast olive light on the stone walls. The floor was stone too, but it had a number of rugs on it, all gigantic and beautifully embroidered. Adara's favourite showed a  
  
large black and silver dragon spewing fire, soaring above an ominous- looking mountain.  
  
Two staircases curved and twisted up each side of the spacious chamber, both with a door at the top. The girls' dormitories were on the right, the boys' on the left, but Adara bypassed both of them and walked over to the fireplace.  
  
"Hi, Adara." said Malcolm Flagg, lazily laying down his book, A History of the Dark Side : From The Beginning of Time to the Present.  
  
"Hey, Malcolm." she replied, reaching up toward one of the candle fixtures right next to the mantle. "Damn. I need to get taller."  
  
"Going into the Catacombs for something?" the boy asked, leaving his shadowed chair and pushing the sconce briefly down.  
  
"Thanks." Adara said gratefully, as the carpet in front of the hearth disappeared and the stone floor slid forward, revealing rough-hewn stairs. "Yeah, just browsing."  
  
Malcolm smiled. "Nobody you want to get revenge on?"  
  
"Actually, not right now. I just need to be somewhere very quiet for a little while."  
  
"Sure. I'll make sure to tell everyone to leave you alone." he replied, picking up his thick book again and curling up in the chair.  
  
Adara descended the narrow staircase and quickly walked back up. "Forgot. It's dark down there." She pulled one of the candles out of a black basket on the mantle and lit it with her wand. Then, she headed down again.  
  
The Slytherin Catacombs were a very well kept secret. Anyone who talked about them was in direct violation of the Slytherin bond, which was a code of silence about any evil actions taking place in the dungeons. If you spilled, you were "out," which meant nobody told you anything  
  
anymore, and you were in disgrace.  
  
The three hundred and eleven stairs down to the catacombs were pitch black, but if you were smart enough to take a light with you, the walls were worth looking at. Hundreds of framed paintings and pictures hung there, most of them nightmare fodder, all of them moving, watching, making sure that nobody except Slytherins had found their way into this place. Portraits of former students all studied Adara with passive interest as she walked down. They all had nameplates and accomplishments listed.  
  
On a picture of a blonde female crushing a spider over a smoking goblet: Gratylia Grindelwald. Poisoned the Ravenclaw who stole her lover and nineteen others who stood in her way.  
  
An old woman who changed rapidly into a girl of about eight, a black rose, and then a chair, among other things: Cynthia Darkstrider. Mistress of disguise. True face never seen.  
  
A balding man smiling in an entirely too creepy and holding a gorgeous opal and silver necklace: Rankin Gibson. Creator of cursed jewelry.  
  
An almost-innocent looking portrait of a boy of about eighteen with very black hair, standing in front of the very fireplace she had just stood by: Thomas Marvolo Riddle. Opened the Chamber of Secrets. Last known heir of Salazar Slytherin.  
  
A girl who had to be somewhere around sixth year, standing with a large group of boys, wearing elaborately embroidered gray silk robes: Circe Malfoy. Enchantress. Murdered.  
  
There were scenes too. A man, studying a book at a desk while a shadow, holding a large knife, advanced upon him. Adara looked away quickly and down at her the cracked stairs in front of her instead.  
  
When she finally reached the bottom, she was slightly out of breath, and shivering. The Slytherin dungeon was underground, so it was always cold and damp, but the catacombs were far beneath even that. It was freezing down there.  
  
At the end of the staircase, there was a wall. A short verse was written directly on it in some faintly disturbing rusty-brown "ink."  
  
A warning to all who enter this lair  
  
Abandon hope, accept despair  
  
Only those of darkest heart  
  
Who love and practice the Black Art  
  
Will understand the terrors here  
  
The others should just disappear  
  
Speak the password, wave your wand  
  
Secret of secrets, the Slytherin Bond.  
  
  
  
Adara drew her wand out of her belt and touched three points on the wall. "Arcanum arcanorum!" Which of course means "secret of secrets" in Latin.  
  
The wall, which was actually a door, disappeared. Adara hurried through and felt it reappear behind her.  
  
These were the familiar Catacombs, the greatest Slytherin mystery of them all. Everyone needs a place to keep things they don't want others to see, and this was theirs, and had been for centuries.  
  
This was where they kept their stuff.  
  
There were bookshelves on the right. These contained every felonious and prohibited spell known to wizardkind, from the Unforgivable curses to small, yet untraceable and very painful hexes. Adara had memorized so many of these already that Marius and Malcolm, along with a lot of the  
  
other Slytherins, called her Miss Demeanor.  
  
All along the back wall were cages and tanks with all manner of odd spiders and insects, rats and mice, and other things the less squeamish brewers tested their poisons on. She remembered the time Andre Epyna had turned a rat inside out with a drop of his new potion. It hadn't been at  
  
all pretty. The only potions Adara ever used from down here were to painlessly poison spiders she needed for spells. She tapped boredly on the glass of one of the tanks and watched a cluster of water minstrel spiders scatter and try to hide. A kappa stared at her from a cage suspended in the corner, gritting its pointy little teeth together morbidly.  
  
"Hi, Joe." she told the kappa. "I'm afraid you may not be long for this world, old buddy."  
  
To the left, there were shelves and worktables. Most of the tiny corked bottles on the shelves contained solutions that weren't deadly, just unauthorized. Adara walked over and pulled one off. The label read  
  
Y Pontification Potion - Causes the drinker to tell the  
  
blatant truth for twenty-four hours.  
  
She had seen that used on a Hufflepuff once. It was cruel but hilarious. The poor boy had been forced to say things like, "Oh, Professor McGonagall, that really is a most hideous cloak you've got on...." She replaced the bottle on the shelf and meandered over to the books.  
  
Holding up her taper, she read the titles of the books she hadn't looked at yet. She was just about to pull one out when a tall figure stepped out of the dark. Adara dropped her candle, and it went out.  
  
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGH!" she screamed, convinced that she had possibly less then thirty seconds to live.  
  
"Shut up, you stupid girl!" said a scathingly familiar voice out of the pitch-blackness in front of her.  
  
"Lucius! I should curse you for that! Bloody hell, my heart's pounding!" Adara gasped, her hand fluttering to her chest.  
  
"Lumos!" The boy's wand lit up, illuminating his white face and clear grey eyes in the otherwise dark chamber.  
  
  
  
Adara resumed her normal cool. "Yes. I get it, it's you. What d'you want, you evil git?"  
  
"I'm sorry about the Quidditch match this morning." he said softly. "I see you had Madam Pomfrey fix that bruise."  
  
"Not your fault. I'm sorry about your eye." she replied tensely, leaning against the bookcase and crossing her arms.  
  
"It's all right. It was just a little cut; I fixed it myself." Lucius brushed away the apology. "So what are you doing down here amongst all our little Slytherin closet skeletons?"  
  
"Oh, nothing really. Hoping to learn a few new hexes, I suppose." Adara stooped to pick up her candle, which was lying in a puddle of black wax and cobwebs. A spider scuttled over her hand. She brushed it away with a flick and then straightened back up. She had absolutely no time to  
  
prepare for what happened, and she would have been less surprised if he had tried to off her right there.  
  
But he didn't. Instead, he gracefully swooped forward, wrapped his arms around her waist, and pressed his lips firmly against hers. Compared to how chilly it was down there, he seemed to be radiating heat.  
  
Adara kissed back at first, because the way she looked at it, that was "standard girl instinctive reflex." Lucius, as innately evil as he was, was such a good kisser that she had the feeling that he was either a natural, which was unlikely, or he'd had a lot of practice.  
  
"Mm....Mmmph! Whoa!" she yelled, planting both hands on his chest and pushing him away. "No! That did not just happen!"  
  
"Okay, it didn't just happen, but you liked it." he said dryly.  
  
"Uh, Lucius..." Adara stepped backwards. "This is not a good idea. If I had a mother, she would've warned me about guys like you."  
  
His lips curled upwards into a smile. "Yes, but you haven't got one, so what's the point?"  
  
"I'm not sure what the point is, but you seem to be missing it comple - NO!" she yelled as he made another well-aimed go at her lips. "Snogging in the catacombs with Lucius Malfoy is not my idea of a relaxing evening!"  
  
"Well, then, maybe you just need a little more practice."  
  
God, he was infuriating. "Lucius, if you try that again, I'll... I'll turn you into a purple bunny rabbit!" she vociferated tersely.  
  
"You mean you're completely immune to my many charms?" Malfoy replied, pouting his china-pink lips.  
  
"NO!" I mean, YES!"  
  
"Aha!" he exclaimed softly, inclining his head to kiss her again. By now, she was backed into a corner and had nowhere to go except ... down?  
  
  
  
Adara detached herself from Lucius, dove through his legs, and bolted for the door. "Arcanum arcanorum, dammit!" she gasped, and took the black stairs two and three at a  
  
time, not bothering to light her candle or her wand.  
  
When she emerged out of the trapdoor by the fireplace, she  
  
marched roughly past Severus and Neptune and headed straight for the girls' stairs. When she threw open the door to the third years' dormitory, she was pleased to find all her roommates present. Narcissa Cromorne, Scarlett Romano, Cirrus Caranni, and Jada Flagg, Malcolm's twin sister, were all lounging comfortably on Scarlett's bed.  
  
"Hey, Adara," called Cirrus, when she noticed that Adara had walked in, "we're playing Truth or Dare. You want in?"  
  
"Truth!" Adara panted. "Lucius just kissed me!"  
  
All four of the other girls howled with enthusiasm. "Where? When? How was he?"" Jada pounced on Adara as soon as she had seated herself.  
  
She relayed the story. Narcissa gaped with a look of utter disbelief on her face. "You left? He tried to kiss you and you left? Oh, my dear Adara, spending all your time with those Gryffindors is muddling your poor mind. Or has someone cruelly Confunded you?"  
  
"You know I don't like Lucius like that, Cissa. You're welcome to him." Adara snapped, "He's an evil git!"  
  
"Yes, but he's an incredibly dreamy evil git!" Scarlett countered mistily, holding a pillow to her chest and squinting off into space.  
  
Adara looked at her with distaste. "Oh, get off it, Romano."  
  
"She's right! He's gorgeous!" Cirrus exclaimed. "He's got that great silver hair. It reminds me of moonlight."  
  
".... And he's so tall!"  
  
".... And that cute little pointy nose!"  
  
".... And those gray eyes, ooh!"  
  
"Uh-huh. You've all gone mad. I understand now." Adara said, stifling a laugh.  
  
"Oh, I'm so jealous," Narcissa mused, staring at Adara enviously. "I'd kiss him any day!"  
  
"You girls know who else is a dreamy git," Jada interrupted, "James Potter."  
  
Another series of wistful squeals. Adara blinked. "Really? James? Eh... You think so?"  
  
Scarlett passed a hand in front of the other girl's eyes. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed. You're around him all the time."  
  
"I never really looked," Adara said disinterestedly. "I suppose he is kind of attractive, if you like the short skinny type."  
  
"Adara, you are the short skinny type." Narcissa pointed out.  
  
"All right, Miss High and Mighty, who do you like?" Jada smirked.  
  
Adara considered. "What, you mean, like like? Right now, um, well..."  
  
"C'mon. You know who we like!" Cirrus prodded impatiently.  
  
The short Slytherin sighed. "Okay, I'll give you a hint. He's tall,-"  
  
Narcissa grinned. "Lucius!"  
  
"No, just because you like him, Cissa, doesn't mean everyone else has to. Anyway, he's got real dark hair."  
  
"My brother." Jada guessed.  
  
"Malcolm? Nah, not my type. Too serious." Adara emphasized.  
  
"Can we have another hint?" asked Scarlett, pulling her purple hair back with a rubber band.  
  
"Since when did you guys get so thick without me noticing?"  
  
"I know who it is." said Narcissa suddenly. "It's the Gryffindor, that Sirius Black, the one in our Potions class, isn't it?"  
  
Adara leaned back against the bedpost. "Guilty."  
  
Protests burst out from all four of her roommates.  
  
"Sirius! His mum's a Muggle!"  
  
"He's on their Quidditch team! He hit you with a Bludger this morning!"  
  
"Plus, he hates you!"  
  
"And he's dating a Ravenclaw!"  
  
The black-haired girl focused on the last two objections. "First of all, he doesn't hate me. At least, I think he doesn't hate me. What makes you think he would hate me?" she inquired calmly.  
  
Jada, who loved gossip, jumped on her question. "Well, supposedly, he told James Potter who told Francesca Hoyt - you know her, the little Hufflepuff Seeker - who told Alden Gant-"  
  
"Okay, stop right there. I don't believe that story because, apart from James and Sirius, none of those people associate with each other." Adara said irritably. "Forget who said it and tell me what it was."  
  
  
  
"Sirius said," drawled Narcissa suddenly, "that you should look into becoming a Defense teacher because you know so much about the Dark Arts." She focused her light blue eyes on the other girl's dark ones.  
  
Adara waved her hand exuberantly. "So? We all know tons of Dark Arts junk! We're Slytherins!"  
  
Scarlett, the romantic, paused. "She's got you there, Cissa." She rolled over onto her back and hung her head over the side of the bed. "Sirius Black. He's pretty cute for a Mudblood, he's got that sexy long hair."  
  
Adara was about to snap at her for insulting Sirius's mother, but before she could, Cirrus jumped in. "Yeah, and great muscles too. But isn't he dating that Ravenclaw whatserface, short kid with the blonde mop on her head?" she asked, cracking her gum  
  
"Oh, you mean Anne Gatsby. I don't know. Don't care, either. She's Muggle scum." said Jada contemptuously.  
  
Adara shrugged. "I hang around Sirius a lot, and I've never heard him talk about her at all." she said, thinking back over the past few days. "Still...."  
  
"You've got a very Slytherin look about you right now, my dear." Narcissa smiled, and her powder-blue eyes glinted. "What madness are you planning, and can we help?"  
  
"Maybe..." Adara murmured slowly, "maybe I could make him jealous."  
  
Scarlett, Jada, Cirrus, and Narcissa leaned in closer. "How?"  
  
"Oh," she said, putting her hands behind her head and leaning back, "lots of ways...."  
  
to be continued... 


	7. Untitled (SO FAR)

The Marauders Part 7  
  
Okay, it's a half-interesting part. Stuff happens! Thanks sooooooo much to everybody who has reviewed so far, oh, and if anyone is interested in being my beta reader I really need some help! And when I'm finished the story I plan on going back and rewriting some of it so if anyone is interested in helping me to that I'd really apreciate the help! Just e-mail me at a_noelle_m@hotmail.com  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
there's a girl livin' under my skin  
  
there's this girl and she's wearin' me thin  
  
and I think she's the reason  
  
that it's open broken hearted season!  
  
~Aerosmith~  
  
  
  
  
  
Narcissa, Jada, Scarlett, Cirrus, and Adara were walking down to the Great Hall for dinner. Well, they weren't really walking, it was more of a slow mosey. They were already late, and it didn't matter to any of them if they missed a meal anyway. Narcissa way always on a diet, and Adara was hardly ever hungry because of her small size, and the others mostly went along with the two leaders.  
  
"So," Narcissa commented innocently. "It would seem that Ms-Playing- Quidditch-Is-So-Much-More-Fascinating-Then-Lads has finally received her comeuppance, would that beit?"  
  
"Shut up." Adara muttered, rubbing her temples. "I'm thinking."  
  
All of a sudden, they became aware of a flurry of commotion coming from the Great Hall up ahead. "What the heck's going on in there?" Jada inquired loudly.  
  
Cirrus giggled. "It's a hoedown!"  
  
"Hold on, nobody pushed Narcissa on the floor, did they?" Adara wondered out loud.  
  
"HEY!" Narcissa snorted. "Loser."  
  
"Easy."  
  
"Hermit."  
  
"Hufflepuff."  
  
"Flobberworm."  
  
"You're just jealous."  
  
"Ouch."  
  
"Break it up, you two." Scarlett sighed loudly, pushing in between the two girls in order to prevent  
  
the tiff from escalating into bloodshed. "What say we go find out who's causing all that noise in the Hall, eh?"  
  
"You know, I'm in no position to say, but it sounds mightily like one of the contenders is probably Sev." Adara commented, speeding up her pace. "I'll bet James and them started another row."  
  
"Adara, what did your little Gryffindor friends do now?!" scolded Jada, fiddling irritatingly with  
  
one of her (surprise, surprise) expensive jade earrings.  
  
"Hey, I'm not their mother. They're welcome to pound Sev if they have a good basis argument." reasoned Adara. "Okay, so they usually don't have a very good basis argument, but it's okay, because he's a jerk anyway!"  
  
"I think he's actually kind of cute." Cirrus countered. "And you know what everyone says about the nose being the measure of what's in the hose- Mmmph!"  
  
Adara had clamped her fingers tightly over her friend's mouth. "Shut your gob, Caranni, none of us want to hear that!"  
  
Scarlett grinned. "Hear, hear!"  
  
Narcissa pushed open the door gingerly. "Well, either way, I suppose we're about to find out. AAAAUGH!"  
  
The other four looked at each other, smirking, and then back at Narcissa. "Something wrong, dear?" Adara inquired, trying to keep the smile off her face.  
  
The blonde girl closed the door and stepped several feet away from it, yanking her wand out of her robes.  
  
"Well, it's a food fight. We know that much." Jada offered nastily. "That's a good look for you,  
  
Cromorne. I especially like the pink accents."  
  
Narcissa performed a cleaning spell to get the strawberry shortcake off of her face and neck.  
  
"Honestly. How unbelievingly vulgar, odious, and loathsome." Narcissa couldn't abide by filth. The other third-year Slytherin girls left the dormitory a mess; it was always she who actually kept her section clean. "We missed more of the supper then I thought. It's mostly the boys left in there, I suppose all the girls have gone back to the dorms."  
  
"Well, where are the professors?" Scarlett wanted to know. "McGonagall sure put a stop to that last food fight right quick."  
  
Adara opened the door a crack. "Well, she's in the infirmary, remember? I heard it was a bad lycanthropy vaccine that did it. Whoa, the Headmaster's sure enjoying himself." she reported, watching Dumbledore hurl a plateful of green gelatin at Professor Flitwick. It landed on his hat and quivered as if it were alive.  
  
All of a sudden, she opened the door further to admit Lily into the hallway. She was covered with pudding and there were lima beans in her hair. "Honestly! How repulsive!" she snorted loudly at Adara. "It's all Sirius Black's fault, I swear. He was flicking peas at Snape and then this happened!"  
  
The four other Slytherins snicked loudly, but Adara shushed them. "Uh, there seems to have been a pudding incident here."  
  
"Oh, that was James. He's a complete nimrod." Lily proclaimed. "It was supposed to hit somebody else, or at least, I hope it was. Now I see why he's a Seeker instead of a Chaser. He's got no aim!"  
  
"Aren't the teachers trying to stop it?" Narcissa asked disdainfully, surveying the usually tidy  
  
Gryffindor.  
  
"Well, McGonagall would, but she's in the hospital wing, bad lycanthropy vaccine, I heard. The rest of 'em look like they're almost having fun. I suppose they don't get out much." she said with a grin. "Oh, by the way, the boys want you." she told Adara.  
  
Adara cocked an eyebrow and grinned. "Since when do you call them 'the boys'?" she wanted to know. "I was under the impression you weren't overly fond of my gang of pranksters."  
  
To the amusement of the other girl, Lily blushed. "Well, they aren't so bad, really. Just a bit loud  
  
sometimes, I suppose."  
  
"Yeah, yeah." Adara kidded. "I guess you're about to go take a shower, huh?"  
  
"Of course," Lily confirmed, brushing back a strand of pudding-y hair. "I'll see you later, right?"  
  
"Right. Ta." Adara grinned. And then, to the Slytherins, "Cover me. I'm going in." She dashed  
  
through the tall door and hurtled through a hailstorm of vegetables, partially eaten pork chops, and  
  
particularly painful hard rolls.  
  
"James!" she shouted, over the din. "Lily said you wanted to talk to me?"  
  
James took careful aim at one of the older Slytherin boys and hit him with a fistful of mashed potatoes. There was strawberry icing on his nose, and he reached into a pocket of his robes and pulled out a note. "Here. Sirius worked this out this afternoon. Read it." he hollered back. "Now, get out of here if you don't fancy a faceful of shortcake like Narcissa got!" he added, pointing at Sirius, who was grinning maniacally and holding a strawberry. Adara shrieked good-naturedly and ran back out to the hall, clutching the folded piece of parchment, and rejoined her  
  
friends.  
  
"Oh, well. No dinner for us. More's the pity." Narcissa said, shaking her head sarcastically.  
  
"Ciss, you get weirder every day." Adara said with disdain. "Eat something once in awhile, you're  
  
stick-thin already, you don't need to be on a diet."  
  
"Easy for you to say, what are you, a size zero?"  
  
"If I'm a size zero, you're got to be size one. And it's not my fault. I'm petite." Adara scowled at the taller girl. "I haven't seen you eat for days."  
  
"Hey, I eat, just not a lot." Narcissa said defensively.  
  
"She's right, Cissa. You're beautiful enough without being on a diet." Scarlett put in. "You don't want to look like Adara, do you?"  
  
"No offense, dear. We all love you, but you're too skinny, not to mention flat." Jada informed the  
  
black-haired girl. "You should eat more."  
  
"I'm quite comfortable with who I am, thank you." laughed Adara. "So, what are our Saturday night plans? Narcissa, I assume yours are snogging with some poor unsuspecting fool by the statue of Lars the Incontinent?"  
  
Narcissa smiled. "Maybe, maybe not. But probably yes. And what are yours, Adara?"  
  
Adara waved the note from James back and forth. "I wouldn't know. I assume it has something to do with the contents of this message. But, of course, it's private." she added with a grin.  
  
"But you'll tell us later, right?" Scarlett prodded, straightening the broad belt cinching the waist of her robes. "Right?" Scarlett was a ravishingly pretty girl who looked a lot younger then she was, much like Narcissa looked older. She was dating - well, trying to date - Jada's twin brother.  
  
"Well, if depends." Adara teased, as the bunch turned down the corridor to the dungeons. "You know."  
  
Cirrus and Jada looked at each other. "She'll tell us." they said together, with a confident tone.  
  
Adara sighed. "Yeah, bog standard. I always tell you guys." She reached behind her head and smoothed down some of her wavy black hair. It stuck out at spiral angles from her scalp. She hated it, but not as much as she hated the way Narcissa made her tell her everything. The taller girl was such a bully, even though Adara wasn't exactly an innocent victim. She was capable of being as intimidating and bossy as Narcissa was.  
  
"So," Narcissa cut into Adara's thoughts, "about your plans to snag that Black fellow. What have you decided?" she asked, with her all-too-customary demanding tone of voice.  
  
The short girl shrugged. "Well, I guess I'll attempt to make him jealous either with Lucius, because Sirius hates him, or with James Potter, because Sirius loves  
  
him." Adara loved James too, but only as a friend. He was one of the few boys she knew whom she could actually talk to. Self-confidence and intelligence fairly emanated from the dark-haired boy, not to mention the ever-present mischievousness. She really didn't want to hurt him like that, but she knew getting involved with Lucius Malfoy was more dangerous then it looked at first glance. The whispers that went around about that family were all but pleasant. Lucius's father worked with Him, the dark one who they did not name. "Or maybe I'll just give his girlfriend a black eye and offer to buy him tickets to a Rolling Stones concert."  
  
Cirrus said the password and the five of them filed into the dark stone chamber. Somewhere, water dripped endlessly, adding to the foreboding atmosphere. The common room was empty as it usually was, after dinner on Saturday nights was when the older Slytherins were getting ready to go slink off with their boyfriends and girlfriends. They climbed the stairs and hurried  
  
into their dormitory, where Cirrus and Jada pulled pyjamas out of their wardrobes, Narcissa reapplied her makeup, Scarlett lifted her mattress and pulled out her journal, and Adara sank into her black beanbag and opened the note James had given her. Her name was on  
  
the outside in Sirius's handwriting, bold and dark red, almost like blood.  
  
Adara -  
  
I have devised a plan for telling each other where we want to meet. It's a secret code. Yes, I know it's childish, but here goes:  
  
When one of us wants to speak privately to the others, just write the time on a piece of parchment in a specific ink colour and give one copy to each of us. The ink colour will represent the place to meet. Chart is as follows.  
  
Ravenclaw Window Alcove: Blue  
  
Empty Dungeon next to the Potions Room: Green  
  
Very Top of Gryffindor Tower: Red  
  
The Shrieking Shack: Black  
  
Invisible Entrance Room across from Hufflepuff Commons: Yellow  
  
The Broom Closet: Purple  
  
Moaning Myrtle's loo: Orange  
  
I didn't have time to think of others, so we'll have to add them as we think of them. Keep this list in a safe place.  
  
Let's see how well all of you paid attention.  
  
10:00  
  
-Sirius  
  
Adara smiled and smoothed out the creases in the parchment. She looked at her watch. It was antique, tarnished silver, a wind-up she had found in a Muggle pawnshop, and she loved it to death. Its tiny hands pointed to 8:45 through the tiny foggy glass face, and Adara groaned. Ten o'clock was an hour and fifteen minutes away. How to pass the time . . .  
  
"I'm out of here." announced Narcissa grandly. Her long light blonde hair was swept back and pinned half-up. "I won't be back until late."  
  
"Try not to wake us." mumbled Jada. "I had a hard day." Jada was an authentic spoiled rich girl. If she had broken a nail that day, she classified it as hard. Adara rolled her eyes.  
  
"We'll see you later, Ciss." she told the other girl. "Have fun with whatever poor slob you're toying mercilessly with now!"  
  
Narcissa smiled nastily. "I'm sure I will."  
  
As soon as Narcissa was down the stairs and herfootfalls had faded away, Adara dove into her trunk  
  
and pulled out her jeans. They were artistically ripped and painted with designs. She liked to  
  
customize all of her clothing, and this particular pair of bellbottoms had a large painted dragon  
  
breathing fire up the left leg, with a fist-sized tear in the right knee. She pulled them on and added a black tank top which she had borrowed from Jada and forgotten completely to return. It wasn't that Adara didn't like wizards' robes, they were ridiculously comfortable, but they weren't at all flattering, especially the plain black ones Hogwarts students were forced to wear every single day. So after hours, when hardly anyone saw her, it was Muggle clothing.  
  
Adara looked at herself in Narcissa's full length mirror and grinned. James had put that rip in this  
  
pair for her, they had been new and she hadn't had the strength to shred the denim herself. Running her fingers fruitlessly through her hair, she opened the door and ran down the stairs two at a time, and then up the boy's staircase three at a time. She stopped at the fourth-year's dorm and knocked rapidly.  
  
It opened almost immediately. "Malcolm, where the hell have you been with that potion? I sent you for it nearly an hour ago! When I say 'go get me a love potion,' I mean go see Snape NOW, not three hours from now!" Lucius Malfoy was yelling, before he actually saw who it was on the other side.  
  
"Must you be so loud?" Adara asked dryly. "There are people trying to snog in peace down there, you know."  
  
"Yes, I wish I was one of them." he replied, whippet-quick as usual.  
  
"Oh, Lucius, don't give me your pity-poor-me act. All you have to do it open the door and whistle and the girls'll be queuing up." she snapped, leaning against the doorway. "Turn down your hormones for a minute and let me in. We need to talk."  
  
He stepped aside and she strode through the doorway into the common room. Lucius was the only one there. Unlike the at least relatively clean girl's dorm, to call this one a pigsty would have been insulting pigs.  
  
"Oh, Malfoy, this is disgusting!" Adara groaned, sinking onto the bed after kicking a pair of black  
  
silk boxer shorts onto the floor. "How do you boys live like this?"  
  
Lucius made a face and reclined against a gigantic Black Sabbath poster. "If you have a problem, we could continue this conversation elsewhere."  
  
Adara ignored him and noticed the poster. "Why, Lucius, I had no idea you liked Muggle music."  
  
"Yes, I find it's the only good thing about them, the wretched plebeians." he replied royally. "What did you want to speak to me about?"  
  
"Well, I figured we might as well get this afternoon's incident out in the open." she said bluntly. "Can't just leave it a moot point or I'll never be able to  
  
look at you again." She fixed her dark blue gaze on his pale grey one. "It won't work, Lucius, I'll tell you that right now. I'm sorry, but it can't work. We're different, you and I."  
  
Lucius left the wall and sat next to her. "That's a lie." he whispered. "We're just the same and you know it. You're just as smart as I am and you're just as wicked, you're just too young to realise that yet."  
  
"I'm only ten months younger then you!" she yelled.  
  
"Just give it a chance, you'll see." Lucius murmured. "I think you're too intelligent to miss it."  
  
Adara rolled her eyes. "Why me? I've got no family, I hate you, and I spend most of my time with the boys from Gryffindor!"  
  
"Ah, well, all mistakes on your part." Lucius yawned and laid back on his pillow. "Well, not the no family aspect, obviously. But the others could certainly be remedied, especially the part about hating me."  
  
"Lucius, you're mad and no mistake." she proclaimed, lifting an oddly shaped black crystal from among the various junk all over his night table and setting it down again. "I came up here to tell you it wasn't going to work. Don't you ever give up?"  
  
He licked his lips. "Hardly. I'm not the sort of person to give up. I'm the sort who'll take what they  
  
want if they can't have it."  
  
"Unfortunately, I've noticed." she said, in a weary voice. "Give up, Lucius. Please. You're wasting your time with me. Go date Narcissa. She actually likes you."  
  
"But, I like you." he countered, sitting up again, definitely too close for comfort.  
  
"Oh, fewmets, you're not gonna try to kiss me again, are you?" she muttered irritably.  
  
Lucius put on a very effective hurt puppy dog expression. "Well, not if you don't want me to."  
  
"That's good. I don't want you to." She stood up and then sat back down again. "I don't have to leave for another half-hour, pity. What else can I yell at you about until then?"  
  
He caught a lock of her hair and started playing with it. "About how I'm so charming you could just . . . "  
  
"Throw up?" offered Adara, jerking away from him. "Lucius, how could somebody so damn skinny have such a thick skull?" She sighed and rested her chin on her palms, her elbows on her knees. "You really aggravate me, you know that, right?"  
  
"That's rather understandable. I'm trying to wear you down, obviously." he commented, picking up his wand. He pulled a flower of the air and handed it to her. It would have been very romantic if it hadn't been black.  
  
She tore all the petals off and scattered them on the floor. "No! It's not going to work! I'm not going to fall for all your cheesy pickups, even if we sit here all night long! Lucius, you are a manipulative, depraved, immoral bag of scum with little or no respect for women."  
  
"Ouch!" he said with a smile. "So, you're sure you're not up for a quick snog session?"  
  
"AM I SPEAKING SOME LANGUAGE OTHER THEN ENGLISH?" Adara bellowed. "Here, let's try French, because obviously you're not acquainted with the mother tongue! Je ne vous aime pas, Luci! Je n'ai jamais!"  
  
  
  
"You're not helping at all. I happen to think girls who speak French are really rather desirable."  
  
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH! Sod it for a game of soldiers! You moron! That's it! I can't stand it anymore! I'm leaving!"  
  
"Give us a goodbye kiss." Lucius grinned. He could see he was really infuriating her, and it pleased him immensely. That is, until she landed him a resounding  
  
slap on his face and a small handprint materialized itself on his white left cheek. "Ouch! Bugger it! Fine, throw a strop at me, why don't you?"  
  
All of a sudden, Adara's hand landed on her back pocket. There was a rectangular bulge in it. "Hey, Lucius . . . Can I tell your future?" She pulled out a flat object wrapped in blue velvet and unwrapped it, revealing a deck of much used and quite antique tarot cards. Adara preferred to call her possessions 'antique,' instead of 'old and rubbishy."  
  
The silvery blonde boy appeared mildly surprised, but nodded, as she had expected him to, and the two of them sat cross-legged across from one another on his bed. Lucius cut the cards as Adara instructed him, and then she laid the cards out in the shape of a cross and leaned over to inspect them. "Let's have a look." She tapped the middle card. "The Moon. I thought so."  
  
"Oh, really? And what would that happen to represent?" Lucius murmured bewitchingly. To him, tarot cards were just a big hoax. He had no idea that Adara had been reading cards since she was ten and knew every single possible combination. She had tried every method of Divination, tea leaves, pouring the lead, palmistry, but tarot cards were her true talent, besides the occasional flashes she sometimes had. She loved seeing shock on people's faces when she told them their own secrets.  
  
"That tells me two things, especially when it's put with this card here." Adara told him, pointing to the card to the left of the Moon. "It's the High Priestess. You're lying, or keeping a secret from a  
  
mysterious woman." She sighed. "Well, since that's probably me, we'll look over here. Five of Pentacles, that means you're looking for money and love in all the wrong places. Oh, and look, it's your card, Lucius - the Seven of Swords." She smiled in such an amused way that he had to ask.  
  
"And what, per say, does the seven of swords mean?"  
  
Adara laughed and picked up the card. "Oh, dishonestly, theft, lying to get what you want, the  
  
like."  
  
"Funny, my dear, oh so very droll." he sneered, his eyes hard icy pools. "Why don't you keep going?"  
  
"It's no use, Malfoy. There's nothing here but lies and secrets and death." She looked at him. "I'm sorry, but that's all I see. You haven't got a very bright future, it seems to me."  
  
Lucius smiled lazily, gathered up her cards, and handed them to her. "Well, you're just made my night, haven't you? I wonder if you've ever bothered foretelling such doom for yourself or any of your little Mudblooded friends."  
  
She shook her head. "I don't ever read my own cards. I don't want to know. And I'll never read James, or Sirius, or Remus, or Peter." She had been tempted, of course, very tempted. It would be oh, so easy for her to lay down Sirius's cards and figure out where his weaknesses lay. But no, she reflected, that would be cheating. "And by the way, Remus, James, and Peter are pureblooded. Not that I put any stock in that sort of thing, of course." He ignored her.  
  
Adara looked at her watch and saw that it was ten of ten. "My, my, where did the time go? I've got to be out of here, Lucius."  
  
"Got a date, have you?" he inquired, watching her turn to leave.  
  
"Well, no, but it wouldn't be any business of yours even if I had. Oh, fiddlesticks and copper cauldrons, I've been here for an hour and we didn't clear up anything, did we?" she said, struggling to release the catch on the heavy door.  
  
Lucius contemplated. "Well, no. I suppose not. But not that you didn't have a jolly good go at it, my dear. Here, let me help you with that." He opened the door effortlessly and she thudded down the stairs, not looking back, not even to say, "See you later."  
  
He watched her go, leaning against the heavy wooden frame, his fleshless arms crossed, looking down the dark stairway myopically. (Lucius needed glasses but was much, much too narcissistic to admit it to himself.) He scowled, pursed his lips, and disappeared back into the murky dormitory.  
  
He'd thought he was a lot more intelligent then to actually . . . He pushed the thought out of his mind and flopped down on his bed, closing his eyes.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
Adara slithered down the hallway, pressed up against the wall. The Ravenclaw rooms were almost all the way on the other side of the castle, in the easternmost portion of the North Wing, and the Slytherin dungeons were the southernmost part of Hogwarts. Usually Saturday nights were the worst times to sneak out because there were always teachers perusing the halls looking for truant students to seize by the ears and drag back to their common rooms. But Adara was unusually good at not getting caught, in fact, all the Marauders were. They had practiced the art of becoming dim. . . . not invisible but dim, just that if they were passed by someone, they could flatten against a wall or a door and just go unnoticeable. It was a talent that many of the Slytherins or in fact, many of the students would have liked to possess, but it was rare. James had been the one to figure out how to do it first.  
  
When she got all the way to the alcove, she pulled open the door, looked back and forth, and slipped inside. Ten-fifteen.  
  
"What took you so long?" complained Sirius. "What'd you do, get lost on the way?"  
  
"No, I was with Lucius." she said perfunctorily. "Nice system. I like it." she added. "Sirius, that is an unattractive position for your jaw to be hanging in. It's going to attract flies."  
  
"Oh," James fumbled in his back pocket. "Your owl brought these to our table by mistake. I think she's getting too used to you being with us." he said, pulling letters out of his pocket and handing them to her. "One of them looks kinda important."  
  
"Ta, luv." She tucked the missives away without looking at them and sat on the floor, not leaning  
  
against the wall. Leaning against the walls in the Ravenclaw alcove was a very bad idea, because they were made of glass. In fact, the entire room was made of glass except for the floor, so one could sit and watch the stars. Adara was surprised that it was empty at this time on a Saturday night, as it was a popular haunt.  
  
"Hmm hmm . . . when I tell all the world that I love you . . . " Remus sang, adjusting his big, awkward headphones. "Boy, this battery-powered portable record player is the best thing I ever bought . . . " He pulled the cord out of the jack, and soft music filled the room.  
  
"Ewww!" Peter moaned. "The Grass Roots! Gross!"  
  
"Grotty." Sirius commented.  
  
Remus looked offended, but had lost the popular vote, and therefore removed the record. "Hey, I like it."  
  
Adara sifted through the stack of seventy-eights in his carrying case and picked one. "Here. The new Pink Floyd album, Dark Side of The Moon. Play this one. It's totally trippy."  
  
"Meanwhile, Sirius, what did you want us all here for?" James asked, sinking onto the floor. "Is there a rationality to this delightful meeting?"  
  
Sirius bristled proudly. "Today, I got my owl order of . . . " He paused for effect. "Liver bird feathers!"  
  
"Where did you get Liver bird feathers?" Remus queried, wide-eyed.  
  
"Liverpool, where else?" Sirius grinned and produced them with a flourish from his bag. "So, we can add these to the potion now. And the Hogsmeade trip is in two weeks, so we can get a lot of the stuff then, too. But for now, I figure we can maybe move the cauldron down to the Shrieking Shack to decrease chances of anybody finding it."  
  
"Yeah, Moaning Myrtle's loo isn't exactly privacy at its finest." James agreed, nodding. "What say Remus and I do that, and the rest of you can go about your normal activities?"  
  
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." conceded Adara. "That Quidditch match wiped me out. I'm going to bed." She stood up, straightened her tank top, and headed toward the door. "G'night, boys."  
  
She went into the hall (to a chorus of "G'night, Adaras.") and began to walk back to the Slytherin  
  
common room.  
  
When she got back to her dormitory, she started getting changed into her pajamas and heard a crinkling in one of her back pockets. She pulled out the letters James had given her and sat down on her four-poster to read them. It had been a while since Adara had gotten any mail, so she opened the first one eagerly.  
  
It was from Ms. McKenzie, the woman that owned Adara's orphanage. She sighed loudly and read it, half -aloud.  
  
"Dear Adara . . . blahblahblah . . . checking up on the girls . . . blahblah . . . hope you're well . . .  
  
yakkity yak . . . behave yourself . . . don't get in trouble . . . please, for the love of God, don't get  
  
in trouble . . . blah . . . sincerely, the horrible old bat whom you happen to live with." She crumpled up the letter, sighed again, and threw it over her shoulder. Then, she attacked the second letter.  
  
It was from Broomstick Beat, asking if she wanted to renew her subscription. She set it on her night table boredly and opened the third envelope, hoping it wouldn't be a bust like the other two. This one was black and written on with a silver pen. When she saw the silver pen, she knew right away whom it was from.  
  
"YES!" Adara cheered softly, not wanting to wake her roommates. She lay back on top of the counterpane and unfolded the letter zealously.  
  
My dear Adara,  
  
It has been some time since we saw each other, so not  
  
only do I miss you, but I am tres ennui without you  
  
here to entertain me. I am sorry, that sounded rude,  
  
but there is very little to do in this town when all  
  
the witches and wizards are away at Hogwarts, and life  
  
can be very tedious. I do hope you're having a better  
  
time of it then myself. I have taken a job working in  
  
Forbidden Fancies, and it would seem I am not quite  
  
cut out for the job as a garçon . . . you would say  
  
bus boy, I suppose. They did not want me in the bar as  
  
I am only two hundred years old, but the manager  
  
apparently took pity on me, which is good, because I  
  
am s'est très cassé, so broke! I was glad to receive  
  
your last letter and I am happy to hear of your  
  
friends, although they do make me a little jealous.  
  
And if you want, I shall give this Malfoy fellow une  
  
petite morsure sur le cou, although from the way you  
  
make him sound I doubt as if his blood would be sweet  
  
enough as is my liking.  
  
  
  
I am quite upset to not be seeing you until June,  
  
because I know you will probably have a happier  
  
Christmas at your school then at home with Madame  
  
McKenzie. I know you do not enjoy her company much, or  
  
the company of the other madèmoisèllès. In truth,  
  
neither do I. I find them coarse and boring compared  
  
to you, at least the ones who are left behind when the  
  
witches have gone away to school.  
  
  
  
On the plus side, to alleviate my monotony, I am  
  
learning to play the piano. It soothes me greatly. I  
  
now see what you mean when you say that music gets  
  
into the soul, and I find the works of Brahms and  
  
Mozart especially relaxing, along with some darker  
  
Transylvanian pieces that of course are near and dear  
  
to my heart, although the words are all in Romanian  
  
and as we all know, ma petite, I do not speak any  
  
Romanian. I would, however, enjoy learning, if I ever  
  
were offered the opportunity. Perhaps you, mistress of  
  
languages, could assist me this summer with that  
  
particular endeavor. How many do you know now? Six? It  
  
is a most impressive talent to possess. I have never  
  
even seen Transylvania, which for me is a great  
  
disappointment, for obvious reasons.  
  
  
  
I fear I must end this letter, as my new job is making  
  
me very fatigué et faible, and the sun is almost up.  
  
  
  
Perhaps you will change your mind about Christmas? I  
  
miss you, ma petite, on this I do not lie.  
  
  
  
Au revoir!  
  
  
  
Your dear friend, Jean-Pierre.  
  
  
  
Adara smiled, folded the letter, and slid it into the book that was sitting on her night table. Jean-Pierre was her very dear friend, but he was also a vampire. A very young vampire, to be sure. . .he had only been bitten two hundred years ago, which made him one of the youngest bloodsuckers in Britain. Every time Adara even considered studying Advanced Defence in order to become a vampire hunter, she thought about Jean-Pierre. It was true that most vampires were evil, had no respect for humans except as a source of type O negative, and were extremely dangerous, but as a  
  
witch, Adara was kind of exempt. Plus, Jean-Pierre didn't kill people if he could help it.  
  
She was amused to hear that he'd gotten a job at Forbidden Fancies, which was the local vampire bar. There was a high population of vampires in Raven's Ravine and the surrounding area. Adara's town was one that was about half and half, half Muggles who lived in happy oblivion, and half magical beings who lived in their own world. It was an amusing balance.  
  
Sirius, who lived three streets away from Adara, hated it. He hated vampires in general and he couldn't understand how she could be such good friends with one of them. She had been considering a job at Fancies too, until she realised that she didn't want to have to waitress a bunch of slightly intoxicated bloodsuckers. James, who also lived in Raven's Ravine, had actually been dating one of them until she tried to bite his neck. That had been entertaining, because it was followed by months of, "You know, necking is a lot more dangerous then it looks!"  
  
The door banged open suddenly and Adara jerked out of her thoughts and pulled aside the curtains. It was Narcissa, who had dishevelled hair, smeared lipstick, and a large smile.  
  
"Where were you?" Adara deadpanned.  
  
"Out." the other girl returned, kicking off her shoes. "I love Saturday nights!" 


	8. Fraternizing With The Enemy

The Marauders Part 8  
  
  
  
Today's Notes: The lovely reviews I've been receiving egged me on, hehe. I promise I'll try to speed it up. And there you go. Now read, review, etc. But especially review. As I've mentioned, they keep me going. =)  
  
Hang on! Last thing. All my chapters have lyrics. They're all relevant to the Marauders and their  
  
current or near-future situations, so I suggest you obtain the mp3's.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
Breathe, breathe in the air  
  
Don't be afraid to care  
  
Leave but don't leave me  
  
Look around and choose your own ground  
  
For long you live and high you fly  
  
And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry  
  
And all your touch and all you see  
  
Is all your life will ever be  
  
For long you live and high you fly  
  
But only if you ride the tide  
  
And balanced on the biggest wave  
  
You race toward an early grave  
  
  
  
Pink Floyd, 'Breathe'  
  
  
  
  
  
James Potter was rudely awakened by someone poking him in the chest. He groaned, rolled over, and pulled his feather pillow over his head. The poking continued. "Go 'way, Remus." James muttered. "I still have a couple hours."  
  
"'Fraid not, James." Remus replied cheerfully. "Seven o'clock and all's well. Happy Monday. And it's your turn to wake up Sirius."  
  
  
  
"Augh!" James faked a scream of horror. "Not that time again!" He vaulted out of bed, hiked up his pyjama pants, and approached Sirius' bed apprehensively. Loud snores were emitting from it, and the curtains were drawn tightly.  
  
James gingerly stood about five feet away from the bed and yelled, "HEY, SIRIUS! WAKE UUUUUUUP!"  
  
Sirius rolled over and fell out of bed in a tangle of curtains and sheets. Muffled griping and cursing emitted from the mass of burgundy fabric. Most of it was corroding observations upon James' character, and general bellyaching about Mondays. It was interrupted at intervals by loud yawns and yells as he struggled with the knot of covers.  
  
James stepped back and opened his wardrobe. "Well, that's done. Surprisingly easy, too. Nobody was hurt." He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror inside the tall wooden structure, noticing that his hair was sticking up in all directions, even worse then usual. There was a cowlick at the back of his head and wisps obstructing his vision. He brushed it out of his face irritably and pulled a clean set of robes out of the dresser, slamming the double doors shut.  
  
Peter got down on his knees and peered under the bed. "Where do all my socks keep going? I'm down to the last." As the words were out of his mouth, James's hyperactive black cat Valkyrie shot out from under the dust ruffle and dropped an unrecognisable piece of fabric on Peter's foot.  
  
He sighed. "James! Can't you keep control of this thing? This is the seventh sock this month." He held up the object the cat had brought him and displayed the shreddedness.  
  
Sirius stood up and corpsed over to his own wardrobe, swaying back and forth. There were circles under his eyes. "I hate, hate, hate Monday mornings."  
  
"Well, we have Potions lab first." Remus reminded him. "You and Adara can grumble to each other, like every Monday."  
  
"Potions!" Sirius perked up. "Brill."  
  
James came out of the bathroom, drying his face with a towel. "Yes, yes, yes. But first, breakfast!"  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
When the first period bell rang, the Slytherins and Gryffindors filed sleepily down to the dungeon. The corridors that led down to the lower levels of Hogwarts were dark, sloped down, and grew  
  
progressively colder as you got further under the castle. The four boys got there first and draped  
  
themselves over the tabletops tiredly. The professor, Attalus Snape, was walking back and forth from one side of the room to the other. He looked a lot like a German officer, complete with monocle, but luckily Professor Dumbledore had forbid him to carry a riding whip.  
  
Snape had a tendency to strike trepidation into the hearts of anyone under the age of 150. Adara used to joke that inanimate objects ran in fear when he entered a room. Being a Slytherin, she was exempt from most of the torture, but she didn't like him any more then the Gryffindors. Nobody did. And, fortuitous enough, she was in the same year as his son, Severus, whose personality will be demonstrated shortly.  
  
Adara walked what she liked to call "the gamut of shame" past the Slytherin side of the otherwise  
  
completely segregated room over to the Gryffindor half. Then she pulled out a chair at the long table James and Sirius were sitting at with a scraping noise and collapsed into it sleepily, dropping her bag on the floor.  
  
"OW! That was my foot, you moronic-"  
  
"Shut up, Severus." she said irritably, not bothering to pick her skull off the table. The younger Snape sneered at the back of her head and continued on to his seat at the front of the class. Sev wouldn't have been popular except for the fact that to be friends with him was to get in good with Attalus, which was otherwise quite impossible. As it was, only the Slytherins even tried. Everybody else pretty much thought he was a prick. Although Adara wasn't exactly famous friends with Severus, she got along with him all right, but she still endured the same taunting  
  
thanks to her constant Gryffindor entourage.  
  
First period Potions seemed to be a rather aggravating ,tradition with the class of '77. This was the third year in a row they'd had it. Sirius regarded it purely as nap period. Out of everyone in the school, Professor Snape despised Sirius Black and James Potter the most, because both of them possessed the amazing ability to answer his questions correctly, even if they had been woken out of a sound sleep. It was infuriating.  
  
The professor stopped in the middle of the room and glared effectively at the students, producing dead silence. "Happy Monday, my little flobberworm maggots. Today, we shall be continuing in our productions of the Japanese misery serum, and hopefully, we will have a voluntary test subject. However, if not, I'm going to pour it down each and every one of your putrid  
  
little throats." His eyes glinted maniacally. Adara and Remus groaned in unison and slammed their foreheads down on the table. All of the Marauders had sacrificed themselves as guinea pigs at one time or another to prevent the entire class from having to be forcibly maimed. Misery serum, however, sounded like even less fun then the time Sirius had drank Personality Reversing Potion and had behaved like a particularly wrathful Slytherin for a whole day.  
  
"You have spent almost half a month learning how to prepare this concoction." proceeded the professor. "It is ridiculously complicated, because if the ingredients aren't added at exactly the right time, inexactly the right order, it could turn into any one of a number of different poisons. If done properly, when swallowed, it creates a deep, dark depression that is, sadly, only temporary. We will be testing this potion in small doses so that none of you have time to go throw yourselves out of the Tower window." He smiled slightly. "Not that the sight of your splattered corpses wouldn't amuse me."  
  
Does Headmaster Dumbledore know he talks to us like this? Adara wondered, drumming her fingers on the desk. James, apparently irritated by the sound, put his hand over hers and stopped it.  
  
"Right, get to it." Snape continued, waving his arms at the students. "Double period, so you all better finish today. Groups of two or three per cauldron."  
  
Remus stood up. "I'll get our stuff." he said to Peter sleepily. The five of them normally worked together, but they made it look like two groups as to not peeve Professor Snape more then necessary. James went with Remus and stood in the line of students proceeding in and out of the ingredient supply closet. They returned with armfuls of stuff and dumped it on the table. James pulled the list out of his mouth and started making checks with his quill.  
  
"Right," he said, after a moment. "This is enough for two cauldronsful."  
  
Adara seized a vial full of bat saliva and drizzled it into her, James, and Sirius's cauldron. "Terrific. I'll dump, James'll check, Sirius'll time." Sirius nodded tiredly and pulled up the sleeve of his robes, revealing a wristwatch on a black leather band. He pulled out his Potions text and flipped to the page they were on.  
  
"Okay," he read aloud, "right after the saliva, we add the crushed water lily powder and stir. Then we need to wait three minutes until it's simmering, and then we add the ice adder eggs, eh?"  
  
Adara poured some tiny dried eggs the size of jellybeans onto the table and began counting them.  
  
"How many of these do we need?"  
  
"Seventy-six," said James, peeking over Sirius's shoulder. He continued reading the notes. "Ice adder eggs are known to cause effective depression when swallowed whole, and are useful also in misery potions..."  
  
"Depressing teenagers is like shooting fish in a barrel." grumbled Remus. "I hate Potions."  
  
"I know, dear." Adara said reassuringly. "I'll keep an eye out in case you're doing anything explosive." She smacked his hand away from his shaggy light-brown bangs. "Moony, stop twiddling with your fringe, it's bloody annoying!"  
  
He rolled his eyes in reply. "I prefer the recipes where the only instructions are to bung the stuff into the cauldron and let it boil."  
  
"We have a free period next," Sirius said to him brightly, looking for the light at the end of the  
  
tunnel. "I think I'll go back to the commons and have a kip, eh?"  
  
"Lucky you." murmured James, checking Adara's count of the tiny snake eggs. "We have advanced Magical History."  
  
"Why did you take advanced M.H.?" Peter wanted to  
  
know.  
  
"Because it's great." James said with relish. "We get to learn all the gory and grisly stuff that happened instead of just the facts."  
  
"It's all in the details." Adara added.  
  
"Bollocks!" Sirius snorted. "Twice as much homework, if you ask me. I've seen some of the essays your lot writes." He checked his watch and motioned to James, who dumped all the jellybean sized eggs into the cauldron. It emitted a hissing sound and turned pink. "I can't handle regular M.H. It's a snooze and a half."  
  
"Shock! Horror!" said Remus dryly. "Let it be known that Sirius Black doesn't like Magical History, because it wasn't obvious from the loud snoring he does during it." His long slender hands expertly diced scallions. Remus wasn't much of a Potions brewer, but he could cook like a madman.  
  
Peter raised the sleeve of his robes to his eyes and wiped them. "Those things are really strong!"  
  
"Well, they're going in the pot in a moment anyway." James said calmly. "Pity the poor sod who has to drink this mess."  
  
"And you know it's going to be one of us." Adara told him. "Noble souls, willing to sacrifice ourselves in order to prevent the class from being poisoned."  
  
Sirius let out a moan, he'd sliced himself with his curved root knife. Blood welled out of the deep cut on the pad of his index finger. "Bugger this stupid class!" he yelled. "I can't wait for summer!"  
  
"Sirius luv, we live in the back of beyond." Adara said, taking his hand and pressing a handkerchief over the gash to stop the bleeding. "At least at Hogwarts we have some human companionship besides each other."  
  
"Well, if you live in the back of beyond, I live in the back of the back of beyond." James reminded them. "I'll try to get over this summer, though. Raven's Ravine has a lake to swim in, we don't even have that." He lived in Wilson-on-Hamble, a tiny village extremely close to Sirius and Adara's, and spent most of his time with them in the summer.  
  
"I'll work on Dad to see if you could come up to the orchard for a few weeks." offered Remus. "Not much to do up there but eat fresh apples and watch the telly."  
  
"You've got a telly?" Peter was confused. "Thought you were pureblood?"  
  
"My father's obsessed with Muggle stuff." Remus explained, concentrating on his minute caterpillar sections. "We've got it all."  
  
"I'd like to come to Wales." Adara said energetically. "Bet it's beautiful."  
  
"No neighbours, though." the brown-haired boy warned them. "It's an orchard, remember."  
  
"Sounds relaxing." Sirius said, inspecting his finger to see if the bleeding had stopped. It hadn't. He pressed Adara's handkerchief against it again. "We'll have to check into this."  
  
"Sirius, drip that into the cauldron." ordered James, running his finger down the list of ingredients. "Says here, four drops of human blood per batch."  
  
Adara wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue. "Ewwwwwwwwwwww! That's totally grotty! I'm not drinking it this time! That's gross right the way round."  
  
Sirius removed the cloth from his cut and held it over the two copper cauldrons in turn. "This can't be sanitary."  
  
"Do you think Snape cares if we die?" Peter asked. "He'd be doing the Mashed Potato down on Hogsmeade's Main Street if we all croaked."  
  
Drip, drip, drip. "I think I'm gonna throw up." Remus said, whitening slightly. "Sirius, could you . . .please. . ." He put his hand on the table edge, gripped it tightly, and swayed back and forth.  
  
Adara, sensing an imminent unconsciousness, grabbed Sirius's hand and covered the cut. "I didn't know you objected to the sight of blood, Moony."  
  
"Runs in the family." he replied, swallowing. "I'm fine. James, could you hand me that little orange bottle of crushed bugbear fangs?"  
  
  
  
All of a sudden, Adara dropped Sirius's hand and gripped the table edge rather like Remus had been doing. "Um," she said in an odd, hollow voice. "I'm. . .er, I'm feeling a little sick myself. Can you boys handle not blowing anything up for the next few minutes while I step outside?" Without waiting for an answer, she stumbled up the aisle, said a few words to the professor, who snapped at her, and staggered unattractively to the door. She struggled to pull it open, left, and slammed it behind her.  
  
James blinked and looked at Sirius. "What was that about? She wasn't sick a minute ago."  
  
"Well, neither was he." said Sirius with a shrug, jerking his thumb at the still-pale Remus. "Probably she doesn't want us to know she's afraid of blood, eh."  
  
Outside the noisy classroom, Adara sank against the stone wall and slid to the floor, taking deep breaths, trying to dismantle her agitation. "God damn it!" she swore softly to herself, pounding her fist on the flags so hard that it hurt. "I gotta start. . .wearing heavy gloves at all times or something like that." She shook her head back and forth violently, and her shaggy mane of waves flowed around her shoulders like black silk. "I'm going to see Dumbledore right after classes. This has to stop. When a girl can't even hold her friend's hand without seeing his future, it's got to bloody stop!" One tear leaked out of the corner of her blue right eye. "And besides," she told herself  
  
convincingly, "there is positively no way. . .no bloody way. . . any of the stuff I saw is going to  
  
happen."  
  
Whenever Adara saw any future of Sirius's, it was always in most alarming shades of greys and blacks and metal and bars, and she wanted nothing more but to hold his hand and just lace her fingers through his without having to let go before she saw his death.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
It was a good twenty minutes before Adara tottered back into the now-silent Potions, and was greeted by disapproving stares from her classmates and her sadistic professor. She stared at the floor and sank dismally onto her stool, and frowned into the cauldron.  
  
"Hey," Remus whispered in an impossibly quiet voice, patting her hand gently. "You okay, luv?"  
  
"I'm still here, aren't I?" she whispered back, with a shaky smile. Peter looked over at both of them and motioned for them to be silent -- Snape was coming.  
  
"And who," the tall, anaemic professor was saying twistedly, "who will be our test subject today? Will we have a willing volunteer, or does someone get strapped down with a funnel in their lips?"He stopped behind Adara, and she rolled her eyes upwards until she was looking at him upside down. "How about Miss Adara, who effectively got out of actually brewing the potion?"  
  
Adara felt like she'd rather take a beating that swallow a misery potion, but she could always hope  
  
that Remus had screwed up and it hadn't turned out right. Snape was still thwacking his riding crop into his hand above her head, so she sighed. "Yes, Professor. I'll do it."  
  
The stuff she was supposed to drink was a vaguely disgusting orangey colour and small bubbles rose, popped, and sank in it. Adara wrinkled her nose and downed the whole thing in two gulps, trying not to think about what was in it, because gagging in front of rows and rows of Slytherins was a very unwise idea. She wrinkled her nose and clenched her jaw. "How long does it take to work?" she asked, well aware of the dozens of pairs of eyes watching her.  
  
Watching her suspiciously, Snape stated "It should begin working immediately - -that is, if you  
  
numbskulled twits have done it properly."  
  
James's face turned red. "We followed the instructions perfectly, Professor." he said tightly, twisting his quill. "All potions are ineffective to some people."  
  
Snape's long fingers were swiftly picking up and examining the ingredients from their table, reading the labels. "And you remembered the blood?"  
  
"Yes, sir." Sirius said, displaying his finger. Remus turned his head abruptly and gazed at the dungeon floor.  
  
Scowling, Snape set down the bottle of bugbear fangs. "As of right now, all five of you blunderers have failed the lab. You may come see me later if the potion manages to kick up in Ms. Adara. Class is over in ten minutes, I suggest you all hurry and clean up. I don't write late passes."There was a general scurry to the sinks, and Peter scooped up the leftover glass vials and carried them back to the supply closet.  
  
The bell rang. Students filed out of the dungeon listlessly, most of them muttering incoherently about the sadistic Potions master. Sirius yawned again, his longish black hair flopping over one eye. "We'll see you two at lunch, right?" he said, punching James lightly in the arm.  
  
"I'm sleeping through lunch." Adara said, her face drained of all colour.  
  
"You don't look so good, Adara." Remus said, with a concerned note. "Maybe you were allergic to something in the potion."  
  
"No, no, no, Moony, I'm fine. Just tired, really." She tucked her books under her arm. "We'll see you later." She and James headed slowly up the first set of stairs to the sixth floor, and the other three took off in the opposite direction, back to Gryffindor Tower for their free period.  
  
"I can't believe that bastard!" Sirius said to Remus through clenched teeth. "She left because she already wasn't feeling good and he practically forced her to drink that stuff with my blood in it, no wonder she doesn't look well."  
  
Upstairs, Adara was walking alongside James down the hallway and suddenly she seized his arm with her free hand and stumbled, almost falling. He jerked his head toward her in surprise and bolstered her up. "Do you need to go to the hospital wing? You're acting like Remus did when he came down with the Dragonpox."  
  
"I've already had the Dragonpox." she told him, convulsing slightly. "I'm all right, I think the  
  
potion just didn't agree with me. Just please, James, walk me to M.H. so I don't do a face plant in front of anyone." she implored quietly.  
  
James linked his elbow around hers and walked a little slower then his normal pace. "Are you sure you're all right?"  
  
"I'll feel much better once I sit down." Adara assured him. "Then I'll take a nap during lunch and I'll feel all better."  
  
"Promise?" he asked her seriously, blinking his own dark-blue eyes behind his round frames.  
  
She managed to chuckle. "James, sun, moon, and stars! I'm not dying, I just don't feel good right now. We've all had a bad potion some time or another. Sirius once heaved for six hours, remember? He's allergic to scarab beetles."  
  
"Right, then." He opened the door to Professor Binns' class grandly and waved her in front of him. "My lady?"  
  
"Oh, thank you, Lord Potter." she said with a grin in her ghastly pale face, sweeping through the door. "I do hope you've remembered to do your essay." she said, as they took their seats at the very back of the small classroom.  
  
"Of course. Too bad it's an inch and a half short." He told her regretfully.  
  
True to her word, after Adara had been sitting for a little while, a bit of the colour came back into her cheeks and she did look much better. James was somewhat relieved. For all Adara pretended to be one of the boys, she really was quite weak, and she couldn't handle a bad potion like they could, especially not something with so many dodgy ingredients, and he'd been worried.  
  
Advanced Magical History was a really interesting class, one that Remus had wanted to take, but his course load had already been full with his advanced Defence. Students of advanced M.H. read all sorts of mesmerizing literature, including journals of infamous Dark wizards. James loved the class and he'd even learned to tune out Professor Binns' annoyingly drawling voice. At the time, they were learning about the Druids, which Adara found thoroughly fascinating. Remus had Druid ancestors; he lived in the history-crammed Tintagel, in the southern tip of Wales.  
  
During the opening lecture and before Binns collected the homework, Adara busied herself scribbling an extra inch onto James's homework under the table. He looked over her shoulder. "Whoa! You're copying my handwriting!"  
  
"No I'm not. Your handwriting's almost just like mine. Sloppy and illegible." She finished and passed his essay up with her own. "That's not the first time I've saved your arse, James Potter."  
  
"Nor will it be the last, I'm sure." James told her, laughing. "But I think I make it up to you perfectly well with my share of your Transfiguration essays." Adara was awful at Transfiguration.  
  
The end of the period came swiftly, and they went in different directions. Adara went down to the dungeons and the Slytherin commons, while James headed up to meet Sirius, Remus, and Peter in the Great Hall for lunch.  
  
Adara slipped through the door, pleased with how empty the gigantic room was. She headed for her favourite wing chair with the idea of having a nap, and was disgusted to find it already occupied.  
  
"Lucius!" she said brightly. "I've cracked it. My life is just like Hell, except without all the good things, like pitchforks and brimstone." She slumped into a chair facing away from him and kneaded her forehead with one of her hands.  
  
He got up and stood behind her, massaging her shoulders with his long white fingers. "What's wrong, my dear? Why aren't you eating lunch?"  
  
"I'm fine." she muttered.  
  
Laughing, Lucius shook his head. "Oh no, Adara. You're not catching me with that. I happen to know your version of 'fine' stands for 'screwes up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.' Now why don't you tell me what's bothering you?"  
  
"If you must know, I had some sort of bad misery potion and I don't exactly have an appetite." she told him forlornly. "Oh, Lucius, what on earth does Professor Snape have against me? I'm a good brewer. . .I'm a Slytherin. . .and I'm even nice to Severus. Well, sometimes."  
  
The boy leaned down until his face was next to hers and she could feel him smiling. "Why, it's the same thing everyone else has got against you, my love." He whispered into her ear. "It's the Gryffindors."  
  
Adara visibly bristled. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Come now, you must know." His long blonde eyelashes brushed against her cheek. "I believe the tern is 'fraternizing with the enemy.' Hobnobbing with the goody-goodies. Associating with the adversary?"  
  
"You can't tell me the Slytherins are plotting my death because I hang around with Sirius and James and the boys."  
  
"Not exactly your death. We just don't trust you as much as we would ordinarily." Lucius explained. "My dear, it's a predisposed world. Since nobody around here trusts the Gryffindors and you 'hang around' with them, you're in their camp."  
  
She sighed. "Lucius, that's ludicrous. I'm one hundred percent Slytherin, just like you."  
  
"I know, sweetness. Unfortunately, not everyone has the good fortune of knowing you as well as I do."  
  
"For the last time, you don't know me, Malfoy." Adara was getting fired up. That was the only time she used his last name. "I know you think you do, but you're wrong."  
  
Imperceptibly, he shrugged and planted a quick, airy kiss on her cheek. "Well, that may be. But either way, I'm off to lunch. See you tonight." He left, his footfalls echoing heavily on the stone.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
  
  
That's it for part 8, and the next episode might  
  
actually be out in the next couple of days! So speed  
  
me up ~ send a review! 


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